(n.) A figure of speech in which the expression is an evident exaggeration of the meaning intended to be conveyed, or by which things are represented as much greater or less, better or worse, than they really are; a statement exaggerated fancifully, through excitement, or for effect.
Example Sentences:
(1) These two types of transfer functions are appropriate to explain the transition to anaerobic metabolism (anaerobic threshold), with a hyperbolic transfer characteristic representing a graded transition; and a sigmoid transfer characteristic representing an abrupt transition.
(2) Yesterday's flight may not quite have been one small step for man, but the hyperbole and the sense of history weighed heavily on those involved.
(3) For a union that, in less than 25 years, has had to cope with the end of the cold war, the expansion from 12 to 28 members, the struggle to create a single currency and, most recently, the eurozone crisis, such a claim risks accusations of hyperbole.
(4) Furthermore, illustrations of the types of transfer characteristics observed in different individuals and different training regimens can be obtained, including both hyperbolic (Michaelis-Menten) and sigmoid transfer characteristics.
(5) Oyster adductor phosphofructokinase displays hyperbolic saturation kinetics with respect to all substrates (fructose 6-phosphate, ATP, and Mg2+) at either pH 7.9 OR PH 6.8.
(6) In it he translated Trump’s coarse ramblings into charming straight talk and came up with the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which captures brilliantly an approach to business and politics in which everything is the greatest, the most beautiful.
(7) Sitting at the table today, Archie is doing his best to look the part – in time-honoured hip-hop style, there is an inspirational motto tattooed on his forearm in flowing script – and he and Foster have an impressive line in managerial hyperbole: "We believe that whatever record label we work for, we can change that label for the better because we understand what kids want to listen to."
(8) The plot is still hyperbolic in the presence of La3+, which inhibits Ca2+ transport competitively.
(9) -The H-3-testosterone concentration was varied from 0.17-100 times 10-8 M. Plotting the resulting 5-alpha-reduction products as a function of testosterone concentration a hyperbolic pattern of enzyme kinetics ensued.
(10) A similar hyperbolic decrease in stoichiometry was observed with vesicles containing 10 or 20% PS when the calcium concentration was increased from 0.4 to 10 mM.
(11) The antiport activity measured in this way shows a hyperbolic dependence on external Na+ or Li+ concentration when the external pH (pHo) is 7.2 or higher.
(12) It is shown to increase hyperbolically with the time elapsed since the nerve section.
(13) The 48-year-old Dubliner has since played down that outburst as the youthful hyperbole of a pilot at Aer Lingus in the early 1980s.
(14) When [Ca2+]i is increased, Ica is reduced disproportionately, but the effect is not hyperbolic.
(15) A well-defined hyperbolic relationship was found between the two variables indicating that the physiologic level of plasma renin concentration depends on the state of sodium balance.
(16) The dependence of DMF upon oxygen concentration in the mixture was approximated by a hyperbolic function similar to the dependence of the radiomodifying effect of circulatory hypoxia caused by radioprotective agents of the indolylalkylamine series.
(17) The Bayesian solution to the Behrens-Fisher problem of normal distributions with differing variances was an acceptable compromise after the data had been transformed by the inverse hyperbolic sine method applicable to negative binomials.
(18) Several reporter genes with estrogen response elements upstream of the herpes thymidine kinase promoter showed hyperbolic saturation kinetics with increasing ER.
(19) In the presence of histidine a change from hyperbolic to sigmoidal kinetics is observed.
(20) Binding to enterocytes isolated from both normal and chronically hypoxic mice showed a hyperbolic dependence on medium Fe(III) concentration, consistent with a single class of binding sites.
Oxymoron
Definition:
(n.) A figure in which an epithet of a contrary signification is added to a word; e. g., cruel kindness; laborious idleness.
Example Sentences:
(1) My father, Peter Self, who was, oxymoronically, a “political scientist”, wrote numerous books, which, while often technical in character, were nonetheless informed by his own rather gentle and utopian socialism.
(2) A cinema hall in August … less the start of a sentence than an oxymoron, I know.
(3) Airport expansion would be a non-starter, as would any more money on carbon capture and storage, and the oxymoronic idea of "clean coal".
(4) If Scottish self-esteem, a phrase that makes one psychoanalyst I know reach for the term "oxymoron", is reflected in our statistics for liver disease, drug-addiction, obesity, young male suicide and domestic abuse, we're not in great shape.
(5) So for me, Muslim feminist, Christian feminist, Jewish feminist, it's all oxymoronic.
(6) The headline “ Rivalry is now part of higher education’s DNA ” (5 August) is an oxymoron.
(7) To most people, the phrase "recreational maths" is an oxymoron.
(8) For a start, it suggests trust is not so much a trump card in Eastleigh as an irrelevance: unfairly, the very idea of a trustworthy MP is fast becoming an oxymoron.
(9) In February 2015 the Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, called Oliver an “oxymoron” because he was an “English comedian”, after Oliver accused of him being thin-skinned.
(10) It seems oxymoronic to prescribe yet more war as the solution.
(11) That's what the UK's Foresight report argued a few months ago, calling for the oxymoronic "sustainable intensification".
(12) That such an oxymoron can exist is a credit to the legal gymnastics achieved by the Department of Justice, which is effectively allowing federal drug laws to be routinely flouted without consequence, so long as the law-breaking is done within a state-regulated and licensed system.
(13) While the term feels like an oxymoron, it’s used more often within the energy industry to refer to an expensive technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS) that once promised to keep coal power a dominant source of electricity for decades to come.
(14) But when I posted a blog inviting readers to suggest questions for you, someone [Newtownian1] said I should put it to you that green growth is an oxymoron.
(15) But by creating the ultimate oxymoron of diet food – something you eat to lose weight – it squared a seemingly impossible circle.
(16) If Maria Miller, the culture secretary, has sat in as many conferences on the "future of news" as I have recently (and I hope for her sake she hasn't), then she might have hesitated before defining what kind of "press" would be affected by the oxymoronic draft royal charter on self-regulation of the press .
(17) The manifesto message for councils is not promising; a “national framework” for devolution is oxymoronic, while the social care plans show little or no awareness of council function or finance.
(18) Everyone knows it’s wrong, but nobody does anything about it – just as they know that British complicity in torture and rendition from 2001 onwards was also wrong, but will again be endorsed by a boneless establishment, which believes that institutional law-breaking is an oxymoron.
(19) Just pablum about “shareholder capitalism” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and “enlightened corporations” that are oh-so-kind enough to give working-class Americans jobs.
(20) But the language of paradox, oxymoron and subtle contradiction – the language of children – does better.