Antonym
Antonyms, from the Greek anti ("against") and onoma ("name") are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as hot and cold, fat and thin, and up and down. Words may have different antonyms, depending on the meaning. Both long and tall are antonyms of short. Antonyms are of three types:
- Gradable antonyms are pairs that express relationships in a continuum, such as up and down
- Complementary antonyms are pairs that express an either/or relationship, such as dead or alive.
- 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.
Although 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. A few words with two antonymous meanings may also be designated contronyms:
- enjoin (to prohibit; to order)
- fast (moving quickly; fixed firmly in place)
- cleave (to split; to adhere)