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Opposition is a semantic relation in which one word has a sense or meaning that negates or, in terms of a scale, is distant from a related word.Some words lack a lexical opposite due to an accidental gap in the language's lexicon.
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.
in use – of a toilet/bathroom stall (US: occupied; but the opposite is vacant in both); of a telephone line (US & UK also: busy), hence engaged tone (US: busy signal) committed; involved in something betrothed English of or pertaining to England the English language (adj.) the foot-pound-second system of units [citation needed] (UK: Imperial)
Upside-down marks, simple in the era of hand typesetting, were originally recommended by the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), in the second edition of the Ortografía de la lengua castellana (Orthography of the Castilian language) in 1754 [3] recommending it as the symbol indicating the beginning of a question in written Spanish—e.g. "¿Cuántos años tienes?"
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]
An antithesis must always contain two ideas within one statement. The ideas may not be structurally opposite, but they serve to be functionally opposite when comparing two ideas for emphasis. [4] According to Aristotle, the use of an antithesis makes the audience better understand the point the speaker is trying to make. Further explained, the ...
The Romanian verb a închiria, the French verb louer, the Afrikaans verb huur, the Finnish verb vuokrata [20] and the Spanish alquilar [10] and arrendar [21] mean "to rent" (as the lessee does) as well as "to let" (as the lessor does). The English verb rent can also describe either the lessee's or the lessor's role.
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. [1] Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. [2] When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings ...