What Is A Antonym

What’s the purpose of antonyms?

Antonyms play an important role in writing by making your words more effective. Placing opposites together highlights their differences and makes the individual words stronger. Specifically, you can use the power of opposites in three ways.

Antonyms are great for comparing two separate things and drawing attention to what makes them different. If you’re writing a research paper that compares two topics, using pairs of antonyms can better communicate what sets them apart.

For example, let’s say you’re discussing life in urban areas versus life in rural areas. Instead of just listing facts about each, you can use antonym pairs to communicate the differences more clearly. So you could call rural life “quiet” and urban life “noisy” or say that there are “few” people in rural areas and “many” people in urban areas.

Sometimes the best way to describe something is to explain what it isn’t. Using antonyms with a negative can add new dimensions to your descriptions and improve your writing’s word choice.

For example, you might describe someone who is arrogant as “not modest” or “not humble.” Because modest and humble are antonyms of arrogant, you’re saying the same thing. However, using the antonyms draws attention to the fact that the person chooses not to be modest or humble, which adds a little more characterization than simply calling them “arrogant.”

Keep in mind that positive descriptions are usually better than negative descriptions, so antonyms are not recommended for descriptions all the time. Still, they work well when you’re playing with the reader’s expectations. For example, bugs are usually small, so when you mention a “giant bug,” the contrast makes the phrase stronger.

In this way, antonyms can enhance your persuasive writing by strengthening your descriptive words and challenging your reader’s expectations.

Antithesis is a literary device that directly harnesses the power of opposites by placing them next to or near each other. As mentioned above, antonyms draw attention to what makes things different, making each word seem stronger. Antithesis takes this to the next level by putting antonyms together. Always look for opportunities to use antithesis when you revise your writing.

One of the most famous examples of antithesis is Neil Armstrong’s real-life quote when landing on the moon:

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

There are two different pairs of antonyms here: small and giant, and step and leap. By putting the opposite concepts of “small step” and “giant leap” together in the same sentence, his statement makes each of them seem more significant. If Neil’s first words on the moon were “I took a small step” and nothing more, his quote wouldn’t be nearly as popular!

When we say antonyms are opposites, that’s a bit general. There are different types of opposites and so different types of antonyms.

Also known as binary antonyms or contradictory antonyms, complementary antonyms are word pairs where the positive use of one means the negative use of the other. In other words, they have an either-or relationship: Something can be either one or the other but never both at the same time.

Complementary antonym examples:

on

— off real — fake alive — dead

Also known as polar antonyms, gradable antonyms are opposite amounts of the same quality. For example, far and near are gradable antonyms because they are opposite amounts of distance. However, these qualities are relative: The mall may be far from your home, but compared to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it’s near your home.

Gradable antonym examples:

new

— old hot — cold long — short

Also known as converse antonyms, relational antonyms play opposite roles in a mutual relationship. For example, teacher and student are relational antonyms: Neither can exist without the other, and yet their roles are completely different.

Relational antonym examples:

buy

— sell left — right parent — child

In English, antonyms are often used with prefixes, small syllables of around one to three letters that attach to the beginnings of words to change their meaning. There are a few prefixes that reverse a word’s meaning, turning it into its opposite—perfect for antonyms!

Be careful when using prefixes: Not every word can take a prefix, so you can’t add them wherever you want. You just have to familiarize yourself with the common prefixed words in English until you memorize the correct terms. Also, pay attention to spelling, as sometimes a letter gets doubled to assist the pronunciation.

Here are some common prefixes used with antonym pairs, along with their examples. Each of these prefixes essentially changes a word’s meaning to its opposite.

dis- honest — dishonest appear — disappear agree — disagree

i- logical — illogical legal — illegal responsible — irresponsible

in-, im- possible — impossible decent — indecent discreet — indiscreet

non- believer — nonbeliever binary — nonbinary linear — nonlinear

mis- lead — mislead behave — misbehave fortune — misfortune

mal- function — malfunction nutrition — malnutrition adaptive — maladaptive

un- important — unimportant necessary — unnecessary likely — unlikely

Antonyms are words with opposite meanings, like hot and cold, good and bad, and happy and sad.

Antonyms are best used in comparisons to draw attention to what separates two opposing things. By pointing out these differences, antonym pairs can better communicate what sets each apart from the other.

COMPARE MEANINGSClick for a side-by-side comparison of meanings. Use the word comparison feature to learn the differences between similar and commonly confused words.QUIZSHALL WE PLAY A “SHALL” VS. “SHOULD” CHALLENGE?Should you take this quiz on “shall” versus “should”? It should prove to be a quick challenge!Question 1 of 6Which form is used to state an obligation or duty someone has?

An antonym is a word that has the opposite meaning of another word. For example, the word small means of limited size, while big means of large size. Happy, a feeling of gladness, is an antonym of sad, a feeling of sorrow.

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs can all have antonyms, though not all do. A word can also have multiple antonyms. For example, the words fast, quick, speedy, swift, and rapid are all antonyms of the word slow.

Even antonym has an antonym! The opposite of antonym is synonym, which is a word that has the same meaning as another word. For example, a synonym of the word fast would be quick—both describe something that moves with speed.

If you are looking for some spicy new antonyms to use in your writing, you can find them using Thesaurus.com.

The first records of antonym come from around 1865. It combines the prefix ant(i)-, meaning “opposite of” and (syn)onym, meaning “a word having the same meaning or nearly the same meaning as another.”

A word may not have any antonyms. This is especially likely when the word has a very specific meaning or is a proper noun. For example, the words three and Pacific Ocean do not have any antonyms.

If you don’t know what a word means, antonyms can help you figure it out. For example, you might not know what the word incandescent means. Once you find out that the words dark and dull are antonyms of incandescent, though, you can be pretty sure it has something to do with brightness or bright light.

Even slang words can have antonyms! In this article, we explore some antonyms of commonly used slang terms.

What other words are related to antonym?

Which of the following words is an antonym of the word “begin?”

A. start B. end C. begun D. beginning

FAQ

What is a antonym and example?

What are the 20 antonyms?

• young — elderly.
• hard — easy.
• happy — wistful.
• wise — foolish.
• fat — slim.
• warm — cool.
• early — late.
• fast — slow.

What’s an antonym in English?