What are paradox oxymoron synecdoche epithet?

Answer 1

A paradox is something which cannot possibly be true, but which is.

The less evidence there is for a thing, the more people are willing to believe in it. (Think of a faith which is not your own, or the way people follow their horoscopes). When people believe a thing more firmly because all the evidence goes against it, that is a paradox.

When you describe a thing in two ways which seem to contradict each other, it is an example of oxymoron. When I realised that we were running very late to attend my mother-in-law's birthday party: I hurried up as slowly as I possibly could.

Synecdoche is when you refer to a thing by mentioning a part of it, or something associated with it : Too much skirt around here for my liking ['skirt' to mean 'woman']; Man does not live by bread alone. ['bread' to mean 'food'].

An epithet can be any adjective, but usually refers to an adjective which is often found with a given noun. We speak of a

wily fox (or a sly fox);

ugly toad;

graceful swan;

dumb ox;

silly sheep.

wily, sly, ugly, graceful, dumb, silly are all epithets.