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overlapping antonyms, a pair of comparatives in which one, but not the other, implies the positive: An example is "better" and "worse". The sentence "x is better than y" does not imply that x is good, but "x is worse than y" implies that x is bad. Other examples are "faster" and "slower" ("fast" is implied but not "slow") and "dirtier" and ...
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: [11]
In Hawaiian, for example, aloha is translated both as "hello" and as "goodbye", but the essential meaning of the word is "love", whether used as a greeting or farewell. Similarly, 안녕 ( annyeong ) in Korean can mean both "hello" and "goodbye" but the central meaning is "peace".
As examples of polarity items, consider the English lexical items somewhat and at all, as used in the following sentences: I liked the film somewhat. I didn't like the film at all. *I liked the film at all. *I didn't like the film somewhat.
The affirmative, in an English example such as "the police chief here is a woman", declares a simple fact, in this case, it is a fact regarding the police chief and asserts that she is a woman. [5] In contrast, the negative, in an English example such as "the police chief here is not a man", is stated as an assumption for people to believe. [5]
Inert is from Latin iners, meaning "without skill". The corresponding Latin antonym, ars, is the source of English art, which is not an antonym of inert. Inflammable Flammable Synonym. From Latin flammare meaning "to catch fire". Inflammable is from Latin inflammare meaning "to cause to catch fire". Antonym is nonflammable. [4] Innocent Nocent ...
Two of them also use emphasis to make the meaning clearer. The last example is a popular example of a double negative that resolves to a positive. This is because the verb 'to doubt' has no intensifier which effectively resolves a sentence to a positive. Had we added an adverb thus: I never had no doubt this sentence is false.
When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings depending on context. For example, Spanish dichoso [4] originally meant "fortunate, blissful" as in tierra dichosa, "fortunate land", but it acquired the ironic and colloquial meaning of "infortunate, bothersome" as in ¡Dichosas moscas ...