Contronym


A contronym or contranym is a word with two opposite meanings. For example, the word cleave can mean "to cling" or "to split apart". This feature is also called enantiosemy, enantionymy, antilogy or autoantonymy. An enantiosemic term is by definition polysemic.

Nomenclature

A contronym is alternatively called an autantonym, auto-antonym, antagonym, enantiodrome, enantionym, Janus word, self-antonym, antilogy, or aḍdād.

Examples

English

  • Cleave can mean "to cling" or "to split apart".
  • Clip can mean "attach" or "cut off".
  • Drop can mean "release or make available" or "abandon or discontinue".
  • Dust can mean "to remove dust" or "to add dust". This contradiction features in the children's book Amelia Bedelia.
  • Fast can mean "without moving; fixed in place",, or "moving quickly".
  • Obbligato in music traditionally means a passage is "obligatory" but has also been used to mean "optional".
  • Overlook can mean "to make an accidental omission or error" or "to engage in close scrutiny or control".
  • Oversight can mean "accidental omission or error" or "close scrutiny or control".
  • Peruse can mean to "consider with attention and in detail" or "look over or through in a casual or cursory manner".
  • Ravel can mean "to separate" or "to entangle".
  • Sanction can mean "to give approval" or "to impose a penalty upon".
  • Table can mean "to discuss a topic at a meeting" or "to postpone discussion of a topic". Canadian English uses both meanings of the word.
Denotations and connotations of words can drift or branch over centuries. An apocryphal story relates how Charles II described St Paul's Cathedral as "amusing, awful, and artificial", with the meaning of "amazing, awe-inspiring, and artistic".

Other languages

Verbs

  • The Romanian verb a închiria, the French verb louer, the Afrikaans verb huur, the Finnish verb vuokrata and the Spanish alquilar and arrendar mean "to rent" as well as "to let". The English verb can also describe either the lessee's or the lessor's role.
  • In Spanish , when applied to lessons or subjects, can mean "to teach", "to take classes" or "to recite", depending on the context. Similarly with the French verb apprendre, which usually means "to learn" but may refer to the action of teaching someone. Dutch and Afrikaans can mean "to teach" or "to learn".
  • In Hebrew the root נכר can mean "to recognize" or "to be a stranger ". The root appears 4 times in Genesis 42:7-8.
  • In Greek some verbs that begin with the prefix "από-" can have a contranym meaning. A prominent example is the verb "αποφράζω" means "to plug something, to fill a hole", and is usually used as a medical term, based on the original ancient Greek meaning. The more modern Greek meaning is "to unplug something, remove a blockage". Similar verbs are "απογεμίζω", that can both mean "to fill up to a brim" and "to empty completely" and "απομαθαίνω", that can both mean "to learn something very well" and "to forget something I learned''". The meaning that negates the main action, is usually a more modern Greek one. The prefix "apo-" sometimes enhances an action and sometimes negates it.

    Adverbs

  • can mean "toward the sea" or "away from the sea" depending on dialect.
  • can mean "a while ago" or "in a little bit/later on"

    Adjectives

  • The Latin sinister meant both "auspicious" and "inauspicious", within the respective Roman and Greek traditions of augury. The negative meaning was carried on into French and ultimately English.
  • Latin means "excessive, too much". It maintained this meaning in Spanish, but it was also misinterpreted as "insignificant, without importance".
  • In Korean, means either "consecutive losses" or "consecutive wins".
  • In Vietnamese, means among other things "bright, clear" and "dead, gloomy". Because of this, the name of the dwarf planet Pluto is not adapted from as in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
  • Spanish meant originally "blissful, fortunate" as in tierra dichosa, "fortunate land". However it developed an ironic and colloquial meaning "bothersome, unlucky", as in ¡Dichosas moscas!, "Damned flies!".

    In translation

Seeming contronyms can arise from translation. 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 in Korean and שלום in Hebrew can mean both "hello" and "goodbye" but the central meaning is "peace". The Italian greeting ciao is translated as "hello" or "goodbye" depending on the context; the original meaning was "at your service".