Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation or feigned ignorance)[1]

is a situation, literary technique, or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or

discordance that goes strikingly beyond the most simple and evident meaning of words or
actions. Verbal and situational irony is often intentionally used as emphasis in an assertion of a
truth. The ironic form of simile, irony used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes may involve
the emphasis of one's meaning by deliberate use of language that states the direct opposite of the
truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection.

In fictional dramatic irony, the artist causes a character, acting as a mouthpiece, to speak or act in
a way intentionally contrary to the truth. This again is a method that highlights the literal facts by
giving the example of a fictional persona who is strikingly ignorant of them.

In certain kinds of situational or historical irony that occur outside works of fiction, a certain
factual truth is highlighted by some person's complete ignorance, or belief in the opposite, of it—
however, this contrast does not occur by human design. In some religious contexts, such
situations have been seen as the deliberate work of divine providence to emphasize facts, and
taunt or toy with humans for not being aware of them in situations where they could easily have
been enlightened (this is similar to human use of irony). Such ironies are often more evident, or
more striking, when viewed retrospectively in the light of later developments that make the truth
of past situations obvious to all.

Much irony involves commentary that heightens tension naturally involved in the state and fate
of a person (in the present, or the past) who badly needs to gain information concerning an easily
known given fact but does not.

A paradox is a true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation

which defies intuition. The term is also used for an apparent contradiction that actually expresses
a non-dual truth (cf. kōan, Catuskoti). Typically, the statements in question do not really imply
the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are
not all really true or cannot all be true together. The word paradox is often used interchangeably
with contradiction. It is also used to describe situations that are ironic.[1]

But many paradoxes, such as Curry's paradox, do not yet have universally accepted resolutions.

Sometimes the term paradox is used for situations that are merely surprising. The birthday
paradox, for instance, is unexpected but perfectly logical. The logician Willard V. O. Quine
distinguishes falsidical paradoxes, which are seemingly valid, logical demonstrations of
absurdities, from veridical paradoxes, such as the birthday paradox, which are seeming
absurdities that are nevertheless true.[2] Paradoxes in economics tend to be the veridical type,
typically counterintuitive outcomes of economic theory, such as Simpson's paradox. In literature
a paradox can be any contradictory or obviously untrue statement, which resolves itself upon
later inspection. An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or the Greek plural oxymora) (from Greek
ὀξύμωρον, "sharp dull") is a figure of speech that combines normally-contradictory terms.
Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as extremely
average, deliberate puns like same difference or pretty ugly, and literary oxymorons crafted to
reveal a paradox.