Word

juxtaposition \juhk-stuh-puh-ZISH-uhn\, noun:

Meaning

The act or an instance of placing in nearness or side by side.

Examples

I had sent from Egypt two Coptic sculptures from the fifth and sixth centuries and placed them in juxtaposition with a contemporary stone mask from Zimbabwe, with striking effect.

--Boutros Boutros-Ghali, [1]Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga

This aesthetically pleasing juxtaposition of contradictions is one of the hallmarks of poetry.

--Ann Marlowe, "Hyphenated Life," [2]New York Times, October 15, 2000

One of the things that made the diary so poignant... is the awful juxtaposition of the ordinary and the horrific, the mundane and the unimaginable.

--Michiko Kakutani, "When a Spirited Teen-Ager Faced the Unimaginable," [3]New York Times, September 29, 1998

Extra

Juxtaposition comes form Latin juxta, "near" + positio, "position," from the past participle of ponere, "to put, to place." The related verb juxtapose means "to place side by side."

Paragraph

Take President Bush and Saddam Hussein and place them in juxtaposition and what do we have? We reach Stupid Square. Saddam Hussein acted stupid by being too egoist and not explaining himself. Whereas President Bush acted stupid by waging a war against Saddam and killing thousands of innocents in the process. Neither of them gave a thought that a war would kill innocents who have nothing to do with all this. I am strongly against war and violence in any form, especially those resulting in death. I wish we could place the two in juxtaposition and get Peace Power instead.