Words & WritingGreek → English
Oxymoron
/ˌɑːksɪˈmɔːrɑːn/noun
A phrase that yokes two contradictory words together, like deafening silence.
The Greek roots
ὀξύς
oxýs
sharp, keen
μωρός
mōrós
dull, stupid
Literally: “sharp-dull”
The story of the word
The word performs itself: sharp and dull in one compound. Late Greek grammarians used ὀξύμωρον as a technical label and English took it in the 1650s. The second half had a long afterlife on its own, since μωρός is where Henry Goddard got "moron" in 1910 as a clinical grade of intelligence, a use the playground destroyed within a decade.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1650s
Same family
moronoxygenparoxysmoxide
In a sentence
Military intelligence, he said, is the oldest oxymoron in the language.
She built the whole poem out of oxymorons and somehow it held.