different between paradox vs doubleness

English

Etymology

From Middle French paradoxe, from Latin paradoxum, from Ancient Greek ????????? (parádoxos, “unexpected, strange”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?pa??d?ks/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?pæ??d?ks/, /?p???d?ks/

Noun

paradox (plural paradoxes)

1. An apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.

   "This sentence is false" is a paradox.
2. A counterintuitive conclusion or outcome.

   It is an interesting paradox that drinking a lot of water can often make you feel thirsty.

   • 1983 May 21, Ronald Reagan, "Presidential Radio Address",

     The most fundamental paradox is that if we're never to use force, we must be prepared to use it and to use it successfully.

3. A claim that two apparently contradictory ideas are true.

   Not having a fashion is a fashion; that's a paradox.
4. A thing involving contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time.
5. A person or thing having contradictory properties.

   He is a paradox; you would not expect him in that political party.
6. An unanswerable question or difficult puzzle, particularly one which leads to a deeper truth.
7. (obsolete) A statement which is difficult to believe, or which goes against general belief.
   • 1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, Richmond 1957, p. 3

     they contended to make that Maxim, that there is no faith to be held with Infidels, a meere and absurd Paradox [...].

8. (uncountable) The use of counterintuitive or contradictory statements (paradoxes) in speech or writing.
9. (uncountable, philosophy) A state in which one is logically compelled to contradict oneself.
10. (uncountable, psychotherapy) The practice of giving instructions that are opposed to the therapist's actual intent, with the intention that the client will disobey or be unable to obey.

Usage notes

• (self-contradictory statement): A statement which contradicts itself in this fashion is a paradox; two statements which contradict each other are an antinomy.
• (counterintuitive outcome): This use may be considered incorrect or inexact.
• (unanswerable question): This use may be considered incorrect or inexact.

Synonyms

• (counterintuitive outcome): shocker (informal)
• (person or thing with contradictory properties): juxtaposition, contradiction
• (unanswerable question): puzzle, quandary, riddle, enigma, koan
• (therapy practice): reverse psychology

Derived terms

Translations

References

Czech

Noun

paradox m

1. paradox

Derived terms

• paradoxní
• paradoxn?

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French paradoxe, from Middle French paradoxe, from Latin paradoxum, from Ancient Greek ????????? (parádoxos, “unexpected, strange”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pa?.ra??d?ks/
• Hyphenation: pa?ra?dox

Noun

paradox m (plural paradoxen, diminutive paradoxje n)

1. paradox

Derived terms

• paradoxaal
• tweelingparadox

Descendants

• Afrikaans: paradoks

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

paradox

1. paradoxical

Related terms

• Paradox
• paradoxerweise
• Paradoxie
• Paradoxon

Further reading

• “paradox” in Duden online

Hungarian

Etymology

From German paradox, from Ancient Greek ????????? (parádoxos, “unexpected, strange”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?p?r?doks]
• Hyphenation: pa?ra?dox
• Rhymes: -oks

Adjective

paradox (comparative paradoxabb, superlative legparadoxabb)

1. paradoxical (seemingly contradictory but possibly true)

   Synonyms: önellentmondó, képtelen, helytelen

2. (rare) paradoxical, awkward, adverse (contrary to common perception)

   Synonyms: szokatlan, meglep?, meghökkent?, visszás, fonák

Declension

References

Further reading

• paradox in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin paradoxum, Ancient Greek ????????? (parádoxos)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [para?doks]

Noun

paradox n (plural paradoxuri)

1. paradox

Declension

Derived terms

• paradoxal

Swedish

Noun

paradox c

1. paradox

Declension

Related terms

• paradoxal
• skenparadox

English

Etymology

double +? -ness

Noun

doubleness (usually uncountable, plural doublenesses)

1. The state of being double or doubled.
   • 1540, Great Bible, 1 Chronicles 12 [verse 33],^[1]

     And of Zabulon that went out to the battayle and proceded forth to the war, with all maner of instrumentes of war fyftie M. that were prepared to the war, without any doublenesse of herte.

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene 1,^[2]

     If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, “Solitude,” p. 146,^[3]

     I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it;

   • 1983, Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy, New York: Knopf, p. 17,^[4]

     It was easy for him, when he saw the straight march of his school, the old section taller and wider and brighter than the new wing, and the new wing following in its narrow dark doubleness, to think of boxcars.

2. Behaviour intended to deceive people.

   Synonyms: double-dealing, duplicity, insincerity

   • c. 1390s, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, lines 746-750,^[5]

     Al to symple is my tonge to pronounce,

     As ministre of my wit, the doublenesse

     Of this chanoun, roote of alle cursednesse!

     He semed freendly to hem that knewe hym noght,

     But he was feendly bothe in werk and thoght.

   • 1577, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed’s Chronicles, London: John Hunne, Volume 1, Chapter 14, p. 39,^[6]

     But if it be a vice to coulour craftinesse, subtile practises, doublenesse and hollow behauiour, with a cloke of pollicie, amitie and wisedome, then are Comineus and his companie to be reputed vicious.

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Book 6, Chapter 9, p. 141,^[7]

     It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite,—capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end;

   • 1963, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, New York: Bantam, 1972, Chapter 8, p. 79,^[8]

     I plummeted down [the ski hill] past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past.

Synonyms

• (state of being double): See also Thesaurus:twoness

References

• doubleness in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.