Prof Ashurova D. U., associate professor Normurodova N. Z. Course of lectures

Oxymoron 
Oxymoron is a combination of two words in which meanings of the two clash, 
being opposite in sense, for example: 
sweet sorrow, nice rascal, pleasantly ugly face, horribly beautiful, horrible delight, 
stormy silence. 

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Oxymoron is such a combination of words in which the meaning of the word 
describing the thing and the word denoting the thing are contradictory in sense. As in 
epithet there is also the interaction of two meanings in one of the components of 
oxymoron /sweet, sorrow, horrible, delight But in most cases emotive meaning prevails. 
Thus, in combinations: a pleasantly ugly face, beautiful tyrant - the first component is 
losing its logical meaning and serves as a means of expressing subjective evaluative 
attitude. It is clearly seen in: «littlest great men» – «low skyscraper», where the words 
«littlest great men» - «low sky scraper» have no logical meaning. They only serve as a 
means of expressing the author's attitude. 
It should be noted that the logical meaning in oxymoron being suppressed is not 
lost completely. If the logical meaning lost, there is no SD. We call it trite oxymoron: 
awfully nice, awfully glad, terribly sorry. 
The words «awfully» and «terribly» have lost their primary logical meanings and 
are now used with emotive meaning only as intensifies. 
Genuine oxymoron is a SD, it is an individual creation and mainly used in the 
belles-lettres style. 
I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and 
all your wrong fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.
/0. Wilde/ 
Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich. 
/0. Wilde/ 
Beautiful tyrant. Fiend angelica
Dove-feathered raven.
Wolfish-ravening lamb.
Despised substance of divinest show. 
Just opposite to what thou justly seam’s,
A damned saint, an honourable villain.
/Shakespeare/ 
I have but one simile, and that's a blunder
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.
/Byron/ 
Oxymoron as a rule has two structural models: 
1.Adj+N 
e.g. 
careful carelessness, the peopled desert, a living corpse, an honest traitor, a 
beautiful tyrant, speaking silence, dumb confession, humble ambition, proud humility, a 
damned saint 
2. Adv + Adj 
.
pleasantly ugly, horribly beautiful, falsely true, detestably cheerful
. 
These are the most common structural models of oxymoron. But it can be 
expressed by other parts of speech too: 
3.N-of-N
e.g. 
paradise of our despair, vitality of poison. 
4.V + Adv. 
e.g. 
It was you who made me a liar»-she cried silently. 
Sometimes oxymoron is given not in combination of words, but expressed by a 
phrase. 
1. You are wrong. You are wrong in the right way. 

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2. She was free in her prison of passion. /0. Wilde/ 
3. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange 
surrenders. 
 
/0. Wilde/ 
4. His honour rooted in dishonour and faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
/Tennyson/ 
The main stylistic function of oxymoron is to express the author's attitude to the 
things and phenomenon described. Thus in O'Henry's story «The Duel» the author's 
impression of New-York is given with the help of oxymoron’s: 
e.g. 
I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the 
Uttlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, 
the dolfulest pleasures of any town! saw.