Definition of "antithesis" []

• Direct contrast; opposition. (noun)
• The direct or exact opposite: Hope is the antithesis of despair. (noun)
• A figure of speech in which sharply contrasting ideas are juxtaposed in a balanced or parallel phrase or grammatical structure, as in "Hee for God only, shee for God in him” ( John Milton). (noun)
• The second and contrasting part of such a juxtaposition. (noun)
• The second stage of the Hegelian dialectic process, representing the opposite of the thesis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And, of course, the antithesis is the dreaded bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, where we feel so out of control."
• "Thus the antithesis is appropriate in the words following, "But we were gentle (the opposite of pressing weightily) among you" (1Th 2: 7)."
• "The role of antithesis is an important one, but its function is more to stand against the thesis, to force the synthesis, than to stand as thesis in its own right."