polar opposition

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.

Example Sentences

No; it was a faculty in polar opposition to the true faculty of conversation.

From Project Gutenberg

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 Project Gutenberg