antiphrasis

Rhetfig: The ironic use of a word that directly opposes the nature of the thing described in order to direct attention to the nature described. For example: Using the nickname "slim" for an overweight person.

1. Irony of one word, often derisively through patent contradiction. (Silva Rhetoricae)

2. Antiphrasis, a word or speech to be understood by the contrary.; Antiphrasis, Sermo per contrarium intelligendus, a word or speech to be understood by the contrary, or contrarily; derived from Antiphrazo, per contrarium loquor, to speak by contraries. Antiphrasis is a form of speech which by a word exprest doth signifie the contrary. It is a kinde of an Irony, and is, When one and the same word hath a contrary signification, or a meaning contrary to the original sense. (JG Smith)

3. Antiphrasis makes words to disagree From sense; if rightly they derived be. (Holmes)

4. In leaving this figure [Irony], remark that when it lies in a single word, Antiphrasis is the name. This is the use of a word the reverse of what one means-as in the expression, "The sacred love of gold;" or as when we say of a foolish fellow, "What a perfect Solon he is." (Macbeth)

5. A new and opposite Name for a thing after the original Meaning has ceased... The figure is so called, because a word or phrase is used in a sense opposite to its original and proper signification; the figure is thus one of emphasize same important fact or circumstance, as when a court of justice was once called "a court of vengence." (Bullinger, 690)

1. Referring to a tall person: "Now there's a midget for you." (Silva Rhetoricae)

2. You are alwaies my friend; meaning mine enemy. (JG Smith)

3. Lucus, from Lux Light, signifies a dark shady Grove. (Holmes)

5. Gen. 3:22. -"Behold, the man is become as one of us": i.e., he had become, not necessarily or really "a God," but what the tempter promised him; and now he will the Tempter's doom and be cast out from God's presence. (Bullinger, 690)