antiphrasis

(ăn-tĭf'rə-sĭs)
n.
The use of a word or phrase in a sense contrary to its normal meaning for ironic or humorous effect, as in a mere babe of 40 years.

[Late Latin, from Greek, from antiphrazein, to express by the opposite : anti-, anti- + phrazein, to speak; see phrase.]

(an-TIF-ruh-sis)

noun
The humorous or ironic use of a word or a phrase in a sense opposite of its usual meaning. For example: "Brutus is an honorable man." -Antony in Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)

Etymology
From Late Latin, from Greek antiphrazein (to express by the opposite), from anti- + phrazein (to speak)

Usage
"He was murmuring something between lips decorated by a little mustache, which gave a sarcastic touch to his clerk-like expression, a mustache folded over his mouth like an antiphrasis, which tinged whatever he said with maliciousness, no matter how solemn it was." — Edoardo Albinati & John Satriano; Story Written on a Motorcycle; Antioch Review (Yellow Springs, Ohio); Summer 1992.

"Perhaps Charles McGrath, in The New Yorker, sums up the ambivalence most eloquently. 'How good are these books really?' he asks, and answers: not so good--although he does so in the more flattering antiphrasis of 'good enough that you wish they were even better.'" — Neil Gordon; The Admiral; Village Voice (New York); Jun 6, 1995.

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antiphrasis [an‐tif‐ră‐sis], a figure of speech in which a single word is used in a sense directly opposite to its usual meaning, as in the naming of a giant as ‘Tiny’ or of an enemy as ‘friend’; the briefest form of irony.

Adjective: antiphrastic.

The ironic or humorous use of words in a sense not in accord with their literal meaning, as in "a giant of three feet four inches."

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