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Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
(See List of words derived from toponyms.) In cases where two or more adjectival forms are given, there is often a subtle difference in usage between the two. This is particularly the case with Central Asian countries, where one form tends to relate to the nation and the other tends to relate to the predominant ethnic group (e.g. Uzbek is ...
Thus, Zealand, for example, is a proper noun, but New Zealand, though a proper name, is not a proper noun. [4] Unlike some common nouns, proper nouns do not typically show number contrast in English. Most proper nouns in English are singular and lack a plural form, though some may instead be plural and lack a singular form.
English adjectives, as with other word classes, cannot in general be identified as such by their form, [24] although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix, such as -al (habitual), -ful (blissful), -ic (atomic), -ish (impish, youngish), -ous (hazardous), etc.; or from other adjectives using a prefix ...
A contronym is a word with two opposite meanings. For example, the word original can mean "authentic, traditional", or "novel, never done before". This feature is also called enantiosemy , [ 1 ] [ 2 ] enantionymy ( enantio- means "opposite"), antilogy or autoantonymy .
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa; Jupiter; Sarah; Walmart) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a continent, another planet, these persons, our corporation).
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.
English adjectives head phrases that typically function as pre-head modifiers of nouns or predicative complements (e.g., those nice folks seem quite capable) while English nouns head phrases that can function as subjects, or objects in verb phrases or preposition phrases (e.g., [Jess] told [my sister] [a story] about [cute animals]).