| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | contradiction, puzzle |
| Synonyms: | Catch-22, absurdity, ambiguity, anomaly, catch, enigma, error, inconsistency, mistake, mystery, nonsense, oddity, opposite, reverse |
| Main Entry: | difficulty |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | problem; situation requiring great effort |
| Synonyms: | adversity, arduousness, awkwardness, barricade, check, complication, crisis, crux, dead end, deadlock, deep water, dilemma, distress, emergency, exigency, fix*, frustration, hardship, hazard, hindrance, hitch*, hot water, impasse, knot*, labor, laboriousness, mess, misfortune, muddle, obstacle, obstruction, pain, painfulness, paradox, perplexity, pickle, predicament, quagmire, quandary, scrape*, snag*, stew, strain, strait, strenuousness, struggle, stumbling block, tribulation, trouble |
| Antonyms: | calm, ease, felicity, peace, tranquility |
| Main Entry: | fallacy |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | illusion, misconception |
| Synonyms: | aberration, ambiguity, artifice, bias, casuistry, cavil, deceit, deception, deceptiveness, delusion, deviation, elusion, equivocation, erratum, erroneousness, error, evasion, falsehood, faultiness, flaw, heresy, illogicality, inconsistency, inexactness, invalidity, misapprehension, miscalculation, misconstrual, misinterpretation, mistake, non sequitur, notion, paradox, perversion, preconception, prejudice, quibbling, quirk, solecism, sophism, sophistry, speciousness, subterfuge, untruth |
| Antonyms: | certainty, evidence, fact, honesty, reality, right, surety, truth |
| Main Entry: | figure of speech |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | turn of expression |
| Synonyms: | adumbration, allegory, alliteration, allusion, analogue, analogy, anaphora, anticlimax, antistrophe, antithesis, aposiopesis, apostrophe, asyndeton, bathos, communication that is not meant literally; stylistic device, comparison, conceit, device, echoism, ellipsis, euphemism, euphuism, exaggeration, expression, flourish, flower, hyperbole, image, imagery, irony, litotes, malapropism, manner of speaking, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, ornament, oxymoron, parable, paradox, parallel, personification, proteron, rhetoric, sarcasm, satire, simile, synecdoche, trope, tropology, turn of phrase, understatement, way of speaking |
| Main Entry: | irony |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | sarcasm |
| Synonyms: | banter, burlesque, contempt, contrariness, criticism, derision, humor, incongruity, jibe, mockery, mordancy, paradox, quip, raillery, repartee, reproach, ridicule, sardonicism, satire, taunt, twist, wit |
| Antonyms: | consideration, deference |
| Main Entry: | opposite |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | something completely unlike |
| Synonyms: | another adverse, antilogy, antipode, antipole, antithesis, antonym, contra, contradiction, contrary, contrast, converse, counterpart, foil, inverse, obverse, opposition, other extreme, other side, other side of coin, paradox, reverse, vice versa |
| Notes: | contrary describes something that contradicts a proposition, converse is used when the elements of a proposition are reversed, opposite pertains to that which is diametrically opposed to a proposition, and reverse can mean each of those |
| Antonyms: | likeness, same, similarity |
| Main Entry: | phenomenon |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | rare occurrence; wonder |
| Synonyms: | abnormality, actuality, anomaly, appearance, aspect, circumstance, curiosity, episode, event, exception, experience, fact, happening, incident, marvel, miracle, nonpareil, one for the books, paradox, peculiarity, portent, prodigy, rara avis, rarity, reality, sensation, sight, something else, spectacle, stunner, uniqueness |
| Antonyms: | normality, regularity |
| Main Entry: | inconsistency |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | discrepancy |
| Synonyms: | contrariety, deviation, difference, disagreement, disparity, disproportion, disproportionateness, dissimilarity, dissonance, divergence, incongruity, inconsonance, inequality, paradox, unlikeness, variance |
| Antonyms: | congruity, consistency, similarity |
| Main Entry: | stickler |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | puzzle |
| Synonyms: | enigma, mystery, paradox, riddle, stumper, teaser, twister |