Paradox | Definition of paradox by Merriam-Webster

Full Definition of PARADOX

1

: a tenet contrary to received opinion

2

a : a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true

b : a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true

c : an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises

3

: one (as a person, situation, or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases

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Examples of PARADOX

For the actors, the goal was a paradox: real emotion, produced on cue. —Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2008
Again and again, he returns in his writing to the paradox of a woman who is superior to the men around her by virtue of social class though considered inferior to them on account of her gender. —Terry Eagleton, Harper's, November 2007
She was certainly far from understanding him completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious. It was hard to see what he meant for instance by speaking of his provincial side—which was exactly the side she would have taken him most to lack. Was it a harmless paradox, intended to puzzle her? or was it the last refinement of high culture? —Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, 1881
Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr. Smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a state of hopeless languor. —Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852-53
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Origin of PARADOX

Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think, seem — more at decent

First Known Use: 1540