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'Antonyms', from the Greek ''anti'' ("opposite") and ''onoma'' ("name") are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as ''hot'' and ''cold'', ''obese'' and ''skinny'', and ''up'' and ''down''. Words may have different antonyms, depending on the meaning. Both ''long'' and ''tall'' are antonyms of ''short''. Antonyms are of four types:

★ 'Gradable antonyms' are two ends of the spectrum (''slow'' and ''fast'') but can have variations.

★ 'Complementary antonyms' are pairs that express absolute opposites, like ''mortal'' and ''immortal''.

★ 'Relational antonyms' are pairs in which one describes a relationship between two objects and the other describes the same relationship when the two objects are reversed, such as ''parent'' and ''child'', ''teacher'' and ''student'', or ''buy'' and ''sell''.

★ 'Auto-antonyms' are the same words that can mean the opposite of themselves under different contexts or having separate definitions

★
★ enjoin (to prohibit, issue injunction; to order, command)

★
★ (moving quickly; fixed in place)

★
★ (to ; to )

★
★ (punishment, prohibition ; permission)

★
★ stay ( in a specific place, postpone; direction, movement)
Though the word ''antonym'' was only coined by philologists in the 19th century, such relationships are a fundamental part of a language, in contrast to synonyms, which are a result of history and drawing of fine distinctions, or homonyms, which are mostly etymological accidents or coincidences.
Languages often have ways of creating antonyms as an easy extension of lexicon.
An example is the English prefixes ''in-'' and ''un-''.
''Unreal'' is the antonym of ''real'' and ''indocile'' is of ''docile''.
Some planned languages abundantly use such devices to reduce vocabulary multiplication.
Esperanto has ''mal-'' (compare ''bona'' = "good" and ''malbona'' = "bad"), Damin has ''kuri-'' (''tjitjuu'' "small", ''kuritjitjuu'' "large") and Newspeak has ''un-'' (as in ''ungood'', "bad").
Interlingua, a naturalistic planned language, also uses such prefixes to reduce vocabulary and ease learning: ''certe'' = "certain", ''incerte'' = "uncertain"; ''pare'' = "appear", ''dispare'' = "disappear". Interlingua also permits many antonym pairs: ''bon = "good", ''mal'' = "bad"; ''rapide'' = "fast", ''lente'' = "slow".
''To cleave'' is an English verb with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: ''to separate'' and ''to adhere''.

Contents

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External links

See also

★ -onym

★ Synonym

★ Litotes

★ Thesaurus

External links

★ Free Online English Thesaurus and Dictionary. Free Online English Thesaurus and dictionary containing synonyms, related Words, antonyms, definitions, idioms, words and terms using Merriam Websters Thesarus, Wordnet Reference and Roget's Thesaurus Definitions.

★ Thesaurus.com - also provides for antonyms.