Berry paradox

Meaning

Noun

• A particular self-referential paradox relating to the number of words in a descriptive phrase.

Origin

• Bertrand Russell, the first to discuss the paradox in print, attributed it to G. G. Berry (1867–1928), a junior librarian at Oxford's Bodleian library, who had suggested the more limited paradox arising from the expression "the first undefinable ordinal".