Phrop

Phrop is an attempted neologism for a polite statement in social contexts whose true meaning is the opposite of what is expressed. An example is "We must have lunch sometime", meaning "We don't particularly want to meet again". Phrop was coined in the late 1940s by the inventor of slalom skiing, Sir Arnold Lunn, and it won a competition of made-up words held by the New Statesman . ^[1] It has not entered common usage.

See also

• Antiphrasis
• Autantonym
• Euphemism

References

• Geoffrey T. Hellman, The Talk of the Town, "Phrop Collector", The New Yorker , 20 December 1952, p. 25
• Arnold Henry Moore Lunn, "Memory to memory", Hollis & Carter, 1956, p. 12
• Philip Howard, "The State of the Language", Penguin Books, 1984, ISBN   0-14-008086-4, pp. 115–117
• "Modern manners"", The Times , 13 November 2006 ^[ dead link ]

1. "Phrop it like it's hot". Kenosha News. 2021-02-07. pp. D6. Retrieved 2025-09-02.