What Is an Oxymoron?

By jamie

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An oxymoron is a figure of speech that directly contradicts itself. They are often deliberate and a clever play on words that in a way help to grab the reader’s attention. They are also often accidental, and the contradiction within the words used is not always immediately apparent.

Oxymorons are often used in day-to-day speech, often without the user being aware. You will also often find them used in literature with some examples very well known for their clever wordplay. There are countless examples of this use of language, and we have highlighted some of the most common.

1. Awfully Good

Beginning sentences with “awfully” to use it as a positive intensifier is largely a British English colloquialism, but it is sometimes used in other English variants. Of course, in examples such as the above, the word “awfully” actually translates as “very,” causing the term to mean “very good.”

The English language can be very nuanced at times, and the Brits in particular are well known for their eccentricity and the rules are not always consistent. In many cases, the word “awfully” will actually be used as it was originally intended to be. For example, food that was “awfully prepared” means that a terrible job was done of the preparation.

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