Wooden iron

Distinguish from Ironwood, various species of tree with very hard wood.

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Wooden iron (German: hölzernes Eisen) is a polemical term often used in philosophical rhetoric to describe the impossibility of an opposing argument. The term is a German proverbial oxymoron, which synthesizes the concept of the "wooden", which is organic, with the concept of "iron" which is inorganic. Such a contradictio in adjecto is a logical inconsistency. It occurs when a modifying adjective opposes its noun, as in "square circle," "freezing fire," "boiling snow," or "hard liquid."