Rhet. [L., a. Gr. ἀντίφρασις, f. ἀντιφράζ-ειν to express by the opposite.] A figure of speech by which words are used in a sense opposite to their proper meaning.
1533. More, Debell. Salem, v. Wks. 1557, 939/1. The fygure of ironye or antiphrasis.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, 201. Antiphrasis or the Broad floute as … to [say to] a Negro … In good sooth ye are a faire one.
1650. Cromwell, Lett. & Sp. (Carlyle) (1857), ii. 110. You are pastors, but it is by an antiphrasis, a minime pascendo.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), VII. XVIII. i. 364. He was by antiphrasis surnamed Philopater.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., iv. (1856), 33. It was a bold antiphrasis that gave such a vernal title [Greenland] to this birth-place of icebergs.
