Definition:
A rhetorical term for repetition of a word or phrase in a different or contrary sense. Adjective: antistatic.
See also:
Etymology:
From the Greek, "opposition"Examples:
- "He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book."
(Benjamin Franklin) - "When you get it, you get it."
(advertising slogan for Subaru cars) - Kent: This is nothing, Fool.
Fool: Then tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer--you gave me nothing for't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
Lear: Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.
(William Shakespeare, King Lear) - "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
(Benjamin Franklin) - When you're finished changing, you're finished.
- "[P]ractically all statements in ordinary conversation, debate, and public controversy taking the form 'Republicans are Republicans,' 'Business is business,' 'Boys will be boys,' 'Woman drivers are woman drivers,' and so on, are not true. Let us put one of these blanket statements back into a context in life.
'I don't think we should go through with this deal, Bill. Is it altogether fair to the railroad company?'
Such an assertion, although it looks like a 'simple statement of fact,' is not simple and is not a statement of fact. The first 'business' denotes the transaction under discussion; the second 'business' invokes the connotations of the word. The sentence is a directive, saying, 'Let us treat this transaction with complete disregard for considerations other than profit, as the word 'business' suggests."
'Aw, forget it! Business is business, after all.'
(S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, Harcourt, 1972) - "Sorry, Charlie. StarKist wants tuna that tastes good, not tuna with good taste."
(Starkist Tuna television commercial)
Pronunciation: an-TIS-ta-sis
Also Known As: antanadasis
