In literature, the literary device or rhetorical figure in which a word is complemented by another that has a completely opposite meaning or that is contradictory is known as an oxymoron. The use of these two opposite concepts, as a consequence, would give life to a third concept. In this way, through the metaphors used, the reader would be indicating certain details about what is being narrated or described. Such is the case of the expression "an eternal moment", which would seem absurd, but openly indicates that both protagonists lived a moment of great intensity.
The word oxymoron comes from the Greek "oxymoron", a word that is composed of "oxys", which can be translated as "sharp, fine", and "moros", which means "dull, stupid". Its lexical elements, by the studies carried out, have turned out to be Hellenisms introduced in the 18th century; in Spanish it is uncommon for its original Greek plural form “oxymora” to be preserved, although in English and German it is. Its Latin form is "condractio in terminis". Some indicate that the word is even an exact example of the concept it harbors: it is fine and sane on the one hand, while it is perceived as ridiculous or stupid on the other.
In contrast to oxymorons, there are pleonasms, those rhetorical figures in which, the propitiated phrase, is plagued with redundancy. As an example, there is the expression “I saw it with my own eyes”. In the same way, a related concept is that of paradoxes, those statements that lack sense or logic, or that go against what is generally accepted.
