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How To Use Oxymoron In A Sentence

  • Oxymorons are things like wedded bliss, gourmet tofu and, more recently, Microsoft Works. Think Progress » Zakaria: Rumsfeld ‘Seems In A Parallel Universe and Slightly Deranged’
  • Any area of the country wher they will look you in the eye and tell you that dinaosuars roamed the earth in 6 BC with Noah and Jesus and espouses creationsim and intelligent design (what an oxymoron) will give you Senators like Inhofe, DeMint, McConnell and the other gop troglodytes, Voinovich: The GOP's 'being taken over by Southerners'
  • As their name suggests, ‘romances of real life’ denote a self-consciously oxymoronic genre.
  • Heh-heh: the term "tight slacks" is actually an oxymoron. Modest Feminine Dress From the Pages of 1990 Victoria Magazine
  • The oxymoron is a figure of speech that makes the unwitty witty. The Times Literary Supplement
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  • Another triumph for military intelligence, the finest of all oxymorons.
  • This is, of course, a ridiculous contradiction and probably would qualify as a first-class oxymoron.
  • The term native-English speaker itself can be an oxymoron sometimes.
  • So… you need a Famous Writer, or at a pinch, a Famous Reviewer (which is all too often an oxymoron) to produce the necessary burble for the blurb.
  • It may sound like an oxymoron: " A phone booth for the mobile world.
  • So it could be called pleonastic or tautological, but not an oxymoron. GeekLikeMe.net
  • The seat of government is a long, self-imposing, hubristic strip of robber-baron parthenons, built, oxymoronically, like banks and temples. Times, Sunday Times
  • Cecil Newton wouldn't have tried to sell his kid's skills if there wasn't a market for it, and the chronic academic underachievement at some programs makes the term student-athlete'' an oxymoron on their campuses. StarTribune.com rss feed
  • This is the supreme apotheosis of the oxymoron.
  • I can only think that, trapped between his automatic deference to prescriptive ukases and a cloudy realization that if everybody is using words in an illogical way usage must trump logic, he squares the circle by means of this oxymoron.
  • The truth is that "clean energy" in this instance is code for "clean coal" an oxymoron if there ever was one, gas and nuclear power. Daphne Wysham: SOTU: Parsing Obama's 'Clean Energy' Promises
  • Here, the notion of a groundbreaking or experimental pop single seems oxymoronic.
  • The whole idea of a last meal is oxymoronic: eating is innately optimistic, a vote for the future. Times, Sunday Times
  • ‘Visual Music’ is not as oxymoronic as its title suggests.
  • Speech was a required elective (which is, in the eyes of the high school student, one of the most contradictory oxymorons to be commonly spoken in the English language).
  • How can you not see that imposing a democracy at gunpoint is an oxymoron? Think Progress » George Will vs. William Kristol.
  • New public art outside of the gallery is something of an oxymoron since ironically most art collections are public.
  • It is an oxymoronic day that does exactly the opposite of what it promises. Times, Sunday Times
  • Prisoners of hope are living, breathing oxymorons.
  • Because you cannot, for your statement "... those oxymorons who make it their" morally superior "business to offend ..." is, I would contend, insusceptible of having any meaning spelled out on its behalf. Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I...
  • Indian, not Native American, is how his book blurbs describe him: in one short story in this collection a character dryly observes that ‘Native American’ is an oxymoron.
  • Oxymorons" - unlike some other drug-themed flicks - doesn't glorify the trade. Home - BostonHerald.com
  • No." Before I made this call, I'd checked the ethical rules for lawyers, which is not an oxymoron. LEGAL TENDER
  • Or that sporting intelligence as a concept is pretty much oxymoronic. Times, Sunday Times
  • To many observers, this seems an oxymoronic concept in a city notorious for information leaks.
  • That can be an oxymoron on the French left, where some use "ultraliberal" as a slur for unbridled capitalism. Socialist Showdown
  • If the eardrum is no longer physically connected to the inner ear, i.e. loss of a single ossicle, the impedance matching effectively reduces to zero (in fact "poor impedance matching" is just an oxymoron), but hearing does not require all parts of the system. A Decade Spanning Single Exchange
  • I mean, this is an oxymoron, there's nothing free about the speech today.
  • A medley of oxymorons, contradictions, and double-standards.
  • This might sound oxymoronic, but the fact is relaxation has turned into an aggressive sport.
  • (Turns out that whelmed is a real word that means “to cover with water,” so “overwhelmed” is a tad redundant and “underwhelmed” is just plan oxymoronic.) Heart over head : Bev Vincent
  • Optimists say it need not be a reprise of Iran; that it could look more like Turkey; that the term "moderate Islamist" isn't an oxymoron, at least in a relative sense. Why Islamists Are Winning
  • I replied that he should tell that to the millions of young people who are unemployed - to them the term jobless recovery is an oxymoron. Don Tapscott: The State of the World: 10 Belated Reflections on 2011 Davos
  • There has been sunshine, hail, rain, sleet, wind and calm all within minutes of each other, but more often at the same time; a tangible oxymoron.
  • Breath and vibration, breaking into this silent visual scene, suggest that something speechlike has happened to the representation of the Poet's desire, in oxymoronic tension with the "mute thoughts on the mute walls around" (120). _Alastor_, Apostasy, and the Ecology of Criticism
  • Now you know all you need to understand that "price gouging" is oxymoronic. The Case for Price Gouging, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
  • Well, you see that our measly, oxymoronic ‘will power’ is no match for breakup freakout, not to mention these massive conglomerate phone companies.
  • The congealed acrylic surfaces with their oxymoronic textures and their occasionally violent collisions of color were yielding to a graphic attenuation, thick palimpsests replaced by bleeding overlays.
  • He should really be teaching a class called "Political Ethics, Honesty and Bush aka Oxymorons and just plain Morons Ex-AG Gonzales lands Texas Tech job
  • Ethical banking does sound a bit oxymoronic. Times, Sunday Times
  • Perfect if you enjoy the oxymoron of a synonym being an antonym.
  • Are we going to take the narrow view which sees Scottish Opera as an oxymoron, and opera and classical music as not really Scottish?
  • Smiley face: how utterly oxymoronic is smiley face? Times, Sunday Times
  • Does the idea of even throwing the words “etiquette” and “stag or stagette party” in the same sentence strike you as oxymoronic? Something New
  • Or perhaps you should just stop uttering those ridiculous Oxymorons like: Must Watch: Bill Maher's Religulous Trailer! « FirstShowing.net
  • It may sound like an oxymoron, but new candy chews and candy bars that promise dental benefits and added vitamins are coming to the candy store.
  • But several are exclusively concerned with the funeral trade, its absurd oxymorons - ‘the future of death’ - and its expansion into a global industry.
  • For some the term is an oxymoron, used only jokingly when referring to the number of keggers that one manages to get trashed at during a school term.
  • The idea of a light of darkness is certainly an oxymoron, certainly a contradiction in terms, and yet we find that among various mystics.
  • For me, it's simple: my students who are varsity athletes must allocate twenty-five hours a week of intensive physical effort to their sport -- and this is at a Division Three school where athletics are formally a second-tier activity; Division One universities should be dubbed "semi-professional athletic training facilities," for those students who are the beneficiaries of that oxymoron, the "athletic scholarship. Van Gosse: A Modest Proposal (to Help Fix American Education)
  • This has made many Americans conclude that business ethics is an oxymoron.
  • And so the non-tribal observer is left wondering whether all that rhetoric about progressive conservatism wasn't oxymoronic. Times, Sunday Times
  • It was a cinematographic oxymoron: a futuristic scene set in throwback black and white, a choice that only highlighted Michael's evolving skin-color. Devra Maza: Michael Jackson's Other Big Move: The Crotch-Grab
  • That sounds like an oxymoron, but it's actually a quatercentenary. How the King James Bible shaped the English language
  • One day I sat her down to explain to her the word oxymoron and then to describe a magnificent and bucolic world of insults.
  • It kinda seems an oxymoron but thinking about it, isn't anarchy just extreme liberalism?
  • No." Before I made this call, I'd checked the ethical rules for lawyers, which is not an oxymoron. LEGAL TENDER
  • Your editorial "Attack of the Giant Oxymorons" seems somehow related here. Analog Science Fiction and Fact
  • An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words such as ‘gentle violence’.
  • If the eardrum is no longer physically connected to the inner ear, i.e. loss of a single ossicle, the impedance matching effectively reduces to zero (in fact "poor impedance matching" is just an oxymoron), but hearing does not require all parts of the system. A Decade Spanning Single Exchange
  • Nudging people for their own benefit in unobtrusive ways is part of what the co-authors call “libertarian paternalism,” a seeming oxymoron that links the notions of freedom from constraint and firm, well-intentioned guidance. The unbearable arrogance of the "Nudge-ers"
  • The aforementioned points reflect a disturbing but common trait among provincial, state and federal "environmental" agencies in jurisdictions throughout North America - specifically, an obsessive predilection that drives wildlife managers to reflexively default to the oxymoronic tactic of conservation-by-killing. Chris Genovali: The Death Cults Among Us
  • Her work goes beyond pathos, and whilst it seems paradoxical to speak about beauty, or even to use an oxymoron like ‘terrible beauty’, her work has a disquieting elegance and poise.
  • Mio Elite Golf XE (miowatch. com; $179): To the nongolfer, the notion of tracking your heart rate while playing a sleepy round of 18 seems a bit oxymoronic. TECH-TOCK, TECH-TOCK
  • Oxymoronically for something fairly reliant on nakedness, it has outfits. Times, Sunday Times
  • It deserves resurrection as an insult that is oxymoronically darkly wise and rudely great. Times, Sunday Times
  • It is that tension between safety and satire that has traditionally rendered oxymoronic the very notion of corporate comedy.
  • Of course, the very concept of a popular tax collector is as oxymoronic as jumbo shrimp.
  • He seems to be a good lawyer (oxymoronic though it may seem). Times, Sunday Times
  • Times stylebook tinker’s dam/damn top of the line top secret topsy-turvy totally touching base to wit transparency trioxymoron trunk show tsouris/tsoris tummy-button tut-tutting two other/other two typo-poetry No Uncertain Terms
  • Is there a safe gun or is that an oxymoron like a safe cigarette?
  • What he has written is contemporary history, if the term is not altogether an oxymoron.
  • Not only did Davis fill those shoes, he did it ... www. bostonherald.com 4 days ago - len Davis now understands why the term restricted free agent is an oxymoron. BallHype - Top Sports News, Videos, and Blogs
  • Oxymoronic dry oils have been around for years, but some work better than others. Times, Sunday Times
  • That's a paradox (one of Ashbery's most famous poems, and his working title for the book that became Shadow Train, is "Paradoxes and Oxymorons") but Ashbery, like Donne, is a poet whose imagination is catalyzed by paradox. Papa
  • The lighter colour was flattering to my skin tone and the whole thing felt rejuvenating, oxymoronically enough. Times, Sunday Times
  • And any science fiction knows that dumb sci-fi is an oxymoron. Saying Goodbye To Sci Fi
  • Cheap cashmere - two words that ought to be oxymoronic. Times, Sunday Times
  • New public art outside of the gallery is something of an oxymoron since ironically most art collections are public.
  • Oxymoron is a rhetoric device that, by force of the surface contradiction of language forms, can express the ideas not only clearly and exactly but also more pithily, deeply and strongly.
  • Oxymorons but nonetheless popular with conservative talk radio types. I have come to the conclusion that nobody is serious about wanting to stop trafficking. « Bound, Not Gagged
  • So mundus in Latin, whence Augustine's oxymoron, "O munde immunde! NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works
  • Your Honour secondly asked about the phrase, the apparent oxymoron of non-exclusive possession acts.
  • : transients attempt to succumb to pathos, and triumph as sad clowns in velvet. there's an oxymoron or two in there, i think. and unseen in the infinite depths of black velvet is the weight of indelible viciousness shouldered by the garish penitents. or maybe Xtreme Hobo Stick. Hobo Stick
  • In the annals of oxymorons, this has to be among the most oxymoronic.
  • If these terms sound like oxymorons, that's because they are.
  • I have no desire to drive those two oxymorons, ‘classic rock’ and ‘young country,’ from the air.
  • This has made many Americans conclude that business ethics is an oxymoron.
  • I'd never have believed it then, but looking back, I think I might have been wearing that most oxymoronic of things: a rebel uniform.
  • Oxymorons of the week: openly pagan Republican and “terrible videogame novelizations.” Weekend Edition: 11-7 « A Progressive on the Prairie
  • From which he then, somehow, draws the curious conclusion that climate change is an oxymoron, and then goes on to make the even froggier leap that it's a big lie and should therefore be casually dismissed. Daily Kos
  • Some oxymorons are found in common day language, such as "white chocolate" (these are two different colours, although the term chocolate is actually meant to be the food chocolate, and not the colour chocolate), or "pianoforte" (this means soft-loud). LearnHub Activities
  • Conservative rebel" is almost oxymoronic, which is why William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan stood out so much. Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor
  • There are many members who are not UU at all, who voted against its creation, and for whom a creedless religion is a bewildering oxymoron. Being too "Christian"
  • Hollywood, where the term original idea is an oxymoron, is developing at least six movies about ... Hasid Trip
  • Or with Bush filling the slot, is that an oxymoron?
  • Meanwhile the Usual Suspects ™ witter on about that phantasmal, oxymoronic contruction, "liberal fascism. Archive 2009-02-01
  • By contrast, the very idea of false knowledge is an oxymoron.
  • It is oxymoronic to have grammar schools alongside comprehensive schools. Times, Sunday Times
  • The term is kind of oxymoronic, since it is clear that by resorting to war and to threats of war, and by squandering unprecedented sums of money on the military, eight years of bellicosity has not made the nation more secure. Foreign Policy and National Security Are Not the Same Thing
  • The result is an oxymoron: a mountainous minimalist design, where ridge lines tumbling off mountain flanks are carried through as fairway contours and washouts serve as hazards and even bunkers.
  • 3. The term "permanent CEO" is almost an oxymoron at Hewlett Packard, a company whose board has fired three CEOs in six years. BusinessWeek.com -- Top News
  • The phrase ‘lush desert’ may reek of oxymoron, but in springtime the Sonoran - with its massive saguaros and organ-pipe cacti, as well as Mexican gold poppies, magenta owl clover, and indigo desert lupine - is just that.
  • We can scale up an oxymoron such as "He froze, turning his head slowly to look," into the more complex sort of narrative non sequiturs we get in absurdist or surrealist fiction, the discontinuities that give these works their oneiric quality, the discombobulation engendered where the sentences don't build up into a sensible sequence. Notes on Strange Fiction: The Pataphysical Quirk
  • But while the Tinseltown titans are flashing cash around Charlestown to get their flicks made without a hitch, the cast and crew of the super low-budget "Oxymorons" are quietly gaining support for their indie flick from locals who think the film's message is priceless. Home - BostonHerald.com
  • He called his inamorata his "soul mate" and, with Cupid's poison arrow in his Republican heart (an oxymoron?), he wept. Redskins Insider Podcast -- The Washington Post
  • The prose poem is a hybrid form, an anomaly if not a paradox or oxymoron.
  • In the more normative setting, where the discussers are relying on “native intelligence” (often an oxymoron) or perhaps are all just well read on events, the “outsight” occurrence perhaps might even be necessary. Outsight
  • He is a man who, when he was pillaging for the Federal government, reduced the term Public Service to an oxymoron.
  • To put the words "efficiency" and the EU in the same sentence can only be described as oxymoronic or, if you like, simply moronic. And so they drivel on
  • The word sleepwalking does well to be an oxymoron, a combining of two incompatibles, for to walk while you sleep is to go against nature. BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES
  • Oxymorons of the week: openly pagan Republican [18] and “terrible videogame novelizations [19].” A Progressive on the Prairie » Weekend Edition: 11-7 » Print
  • That's as oxymoronic, and just plain moronic, as it gets. alexbroner Redefining Self-Sufficiency « PubliCola
  • Career planning is an oxymoron. The most exciting opportunities tend to be unplanned.
  • Psychologist: The term compassionate conservative is an "oxymoron Chron.com Chronicle
  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona. Propeller Most Popular Stories
  • My frustration with talk of "self-sufficiency" is that we're in an economy that is facing an oxymoronic jobless recovery, when official unemployment is at 10 percent in places doing well and unofficial unemployment -- when you take into account those who have stopped looking for work or those caught up in the war on drugs on account of the dearth of good jobs -- is through the roof. Redefining Self-Sufficiency « PubliCola
  • It's an oxymoron but ‘Unconditional’ is an urban pastorale.
  • After all, he did win a nationwide poll to find whom the public rated our most honest politician, though I've always considered ‘honest politician’ something of an oxymoron.
  • Yes, but it does leave a reader ever more certain that the term ‘mature male’ is an oxymoron.
  • But as Steve Chapman writes, the truth is that the term romantic boys is not an oxymoron. Reason Magazine
  • The impotence of will and rationality to deal with this mania is recognized in the common terms madly, wildly, deliriously, head-over-heels in love, since it would be oxymoronic to claim to be gently, reliably or sensibly in love. First Comes Marriage
  • I detest the term "jobless recovery" as an oxymoron. The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

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