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Opposite (semantics) In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship. For example, something that is male entails that it is not female. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as opposition.
Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, having opposite meanings depending on context.
Converse (semantics) 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] Converses can be understood as a pair of words where one word implies a ...
Contronym. A contronym, contranym or autoantonym [1] is a word with two meanings that are opposite each other. For example, the word cleave can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind together". This feature is also called enantiosemy, [2] [3] enantionymy ( enantio- means "opposite"), antilogy or autoantonymy.
Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example: hot ↔ cold, large ↔ small, thick ↔ thin, synonym ↔ antonym; Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a specific instance of that category. For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a hyponym of vehicle.
The meaning relation between hyponyms and hypernyms applies to lexical items of the same word class (that is, part of speech), and holds between senses rather than words. For instance, the word screwdriver used in the previous example refers to the screwdriver tool, and not to the screwdriver drink. Hypernymy and hyponymy are converse relations.
Unity of opposites. The unity of opposites (Latin; unio oppositorum) is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense. [1] It defines a situation in which the existence or identity of a thing (or situation) depends on the co-existence of at least two conditions which are opposite to each ...
Thesaurus. 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 ...