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The term antonym (and the related antonymy) is commonly taken to be synonymous with opposite, but antonym also has other more restricted meanings. Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous spectrum (hot, cold).
An aptronym, aptonym, or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner (e.g. their occupation). [1]Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post coined the word inaptonym as an antonym for "aptonym".
A contronym is alternatively called an autantonym, auto-antonym, antagonym, [3] [4] enantiodrome, enantionym, Janus word (after the Roman god Janus, who is usually depicted with two faces), [4] self-antonym, antilogy, or addad (Arabic, singular didd).
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.
antonym: a word with the exact opposite meaning of another word; an antithesis: often shown in opposite word pairs such as "high" and "low" (compare with "synonym") apronym : a word which, as an acronym or backronym, has a meaning related to the meaning of the words constituting the acronym or backronym; such as PLATO for "Programmed Logic for ...
In linguistics, converses or relational antonyms are pairs of words that refer to a relationship from opposite points of view, such as parent/child or borrow/lend. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The relationship between such words is called a converse relation . [ 2 ]
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.
Oxymorons in the narrow sense are a rhetorical device used deliberately by the speaker and intended to be understood as such by the listener. In a more extended sense, the term "oxymoron" has also been applied to inadvertent or incidental contradictions, as in the case of "dead metaphors" ("barely clothed" or "terribly good").