paradoxes

NOUN

contradiction, puzzle

Synonyms

STRONGEST

absurdity ambiguity anomaly enigma inconsistency mystery oddity

STRONG

catch error mistake nonsense opposite reverse

WEAK

catch-22

Antonyms

STRONGEST

normality regularity standard usualness

STRONG

accuracy certainty correction same success truth understanding

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

A book club is filled with a hundred little paradoxes: They want to learn but not be lectured to.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

Time-travel paradoxes rest on the false premise that events exist as revisitable locations.

From Science Daily • Nov. 2, 2025

One of the paradoxes of songwriting is that it can be fiendishly difficult to craft something that sounds effortlessly simple.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 29, 2025

Leo highlighted the "outrageous paradoxes" by which enormous amounts of food go wasted in the world "while multitudes of people scramble to find something in the garbage to put in their mouths".

From Barron's • Oct. 16, 2025

We’d be able to explain to them everything we know—from the adventures of Alice in Wonderland to the paradoxes of quantum physics—and they could teach us how their people view the world.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari