polar opposition

American  

noun

Linguistics.

1. the relation between a pair of antonyms that denote relatively higher and lower degrees of a quality with respect to an explicit or implicit norm rather than absolute values, as the relation between tall and short or light and dark, but not between true and false.

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Example Sentences

Next door, Idaho presents a polar opposition to Oregon.

From The Guardian • Apr. 13, 2016

But even that polar opposition reflects a certain parallelism: These movies both reflect the strengths and limitations of American indie cinema in the age of the Great Television Conquest.

From Salon • Feb. 26, 2015

But the kinds of power are not merely different; they are in polar opposition to each other.

From Autobiographical Sketches by De Quincey, Thomas

The ideas 'unclean' and 'holy' seem to us to stand in polar opposition to one another, but it was not so with the Semites.

From Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism by Ellis, Havelock

Being convinced by his opponent—i. e., convinced that his opponent's view is the right one—how can he retain his own original opinion, which by the supposition is in polar opposition.

From The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg by Hogg, James