Antiphrasis; or, Permutation: i.e., A New Name for the Old Thing A new and opposite Name for a thing after the original Meaning has ceased
An-tiph´-ra-sis . Greek, ἀντίφρασις, from ἀντιφράζειν (antiphrazein), to express by antithesis or negation; from ἀντί (anti), against, and φράζειν (phrazein). Hence, φράσις (phrasis), a way of speaking . The figure is so called, because a word or phrase is used in a sense opposite to its original and proper signification; the figure is thus one of change: the name of a thing or subject being changed to the opposite, in order to emphasize some important fact or circumstance, as when a court of justice was once called “a court of vengeance .”
It thus partakes of, and is indeed a species of, Irony (q.v. [Note: Which see.]). The difference is that Antiphrasis is used only of single words or phrases, while Irony is used of connected sentences. Another difference is that Antiphrasis affects rather the meaning of words, while Irony affects the application of words.
Hence Antiphrasis is called, by the Latins, PERMUTATIO, or permutation, because of this change of meaning.
Genesis 3:22. -“Behold, the man is become as one of us”: i.e., he had become, not necessarily or really “a God,” but what the tempter promised him; and now he will get the Tempter’s doom and be cast out from God’s presence.
Isaiah 44:25. -“That turneth wise men backward”: i.e., those who are accounted wise by themselves or others. Not those who are truly and really wise in God’s sight. So the word “knowledge” is used in the next sentence by Antiphrasis .