Definition:
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in a sense contrary to its conventional meaning for ironic or humorous effect; verbal irony. Adjective: antiphrastic. See also:
Etymology:
From the Greek, "express by the opposite"Examples and Observations:
- "Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money--and a woman--and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?"
(Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, 1944) - The first sentence below illustrates antiphrasis: it's clear that the noise Frank makes isn't at all "dulcet" (or "pleasing to the ear"). In the second passage, however, "pretty clever" is simply a convenient lie; it's not used as an ironic figure of speech.
- "I was awakened by the dulcet tones of Frank, the morning doorman, alternately yelling my name, ringing my doorbell, and pounding on my apartment door."
(Dorothy Samuels, Filthy Rich. William Morrow, 2001) - "Owen would just smile and eat his eggs, and maybe reach over and slap Ernie's back and say, 'That's real funny, Ernie. You're pretty clever.' All the while thinking to himself, You moron. What do you know?
"Which, of course, he couldn't say out loud. He could think it, but he couldn't say it. When you're a public figure in a small town, you have to treat people with dignity, even Ernie Matthews."
(Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony. HarperOne, 2002)
- "I was awakened by the dulcet tones of Frank, the morning doorman, alternately yelling my name, ringing my doorbell, and pounding on my apartment door."
- "Even a brief consideration of the most common rhetorical devices deployed in ironic texts will show that antiphrasis explains only some of them, such as litotes and contradiction; whereas, on the contrary, hyperbole works by excess, not opposition, and meiosis operates by playing down more than by playing against."
(Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. Routledge, 1994)
Pronunciation: an-TIF-ra-sis
Also Known As: semantic inversion, verbal irony
