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An antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings. Each word in the pair is the antithesis of the other. A word may have more than one antonym. There are three categories of antonyms identified by the nature of the relationship between the opposed meanings.
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), [1] [2] sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms.
An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. [1] Such words usually have a prefix or suffix that would imply that there is an antonym, with the prefix or suffix being absent or opposite.
A kakistocracy (/ k æ k ɪ ˈ s t ɒ k r ə s i /, / k æ k ɪ s ˈ t ɒ-/) is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. [1]: 54 [2] [3] The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century.
Often there is a double antithesis, as in the following proverb, where "man" is opposed to "God", and "proposes" is contrasted with "disposes": Man proposes, God disposes. (anonymous) Another type is of the form "not A, but B" (negative-positive), in which the point made is emphasised by first being contrasted with its negative:
Alternatively, the connotation of the word may be thought of as the set of all its possible referents (as opposed to merely the actual ones). A word's denotation is the collection of things it refers to; its connotation is what it implies about the things it is used to refer to (a second level of meanings is termed connotative). The connotation ...
Synonyms often express a nuance of meaning or are used in different registers of speech or writing. Various technical domains may employ synonyms to convey precise technical nuances. Some writers avoid repeating the same word in close proximity, and prefer to use synonyms: this is called elegant variation. Many modern style guides criticize this.
According to Ferdinand de Saussure, the binary opposition is the means by which the units of language have value or meaning; each unit is defined in reciprocal determination with another term, as in binary code. For instance, 'hot' gains meaning because of its relation to 'cold,' and vice versa.