ANTITHESIS (the Greek for "setting opposite"), in rhetoric, the bringing out of a contrast in the meaning by an obvious con trast in the expression, as in the following :—"When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb ; when present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present ; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble." The force of the antithesis is increased if the words on which the beat of the contrast falls are alliterative, or otherwise similar in sound, as—"The fairest but the falsest of her sex." Among English writers who have made the most abun dant use of antithesis are Pope, Young, Johnson, and Gibbon.