paradox

1. A statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless.
   

   Example
   
   Whosoever loses his life, shall find it.

2. = inopinatum. The expression of one's inability to believe or conceive of something; a type of faux wondering). As such, this kind of paradox is much like aporia and functions much like a rhetorical question or erotema.
   
   Example
   
   It seems impossible to me that this administration could so quickly reverse itself on this issue.

Related Figures

• oxymoron
  A compressed paradox.
• Rhetorical Questions
• erotema
• aporia
• irony

• Contraries

Sources: Melanch. IR c8r ("paradoxum" "inopinatum"); Day 1599 90 ("paradoxon"); Putt. (1589) 233 ("paradoxon," "the wondrer")