Oxymoron Examples

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which words or phrases that appear to express opposite thoughts are used in conjunction and describe a situation where both words or phrases are aptly applied.

1. wakeful sleep

2. patient zeal

3. quiet fury

4. deafening silence

5. dark day

Literary Examples of Oxymora

1. "The last shall be first and the first shall be last." The Bible

2. "Parting is such sweet sorrow." Romeo and Juliet

3. "Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! Wolvish-ravening lamb!"Romeo and Juliet

4. "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" "The World is Too Much With Us," William Wordsworth

5. "All changed, changed suddenly / A terrible beauty is born." "Easter 1916," William Butler Yeats