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stranger
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stranger
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Are their any words that are their own antonym? Seems contradictory, I know, but it struck me one day long ago, when someone said something to me that, based on the interpretation of a particular word in the sentence, could have had its meaning turned on its head. Secondly, what is the name to describe a word that has this quality? Thanks.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Mar 2000
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A recent use of the word, 'wicked' amongst teenagers comes to mind. In their usage it means the opposite of its original meaning.To be 'wicked' is to be super cool and is a good thing to be.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know the name for this phenomenon, but I can think of one more example: "sanction" as a verb means to approve, while "sanction" as a noun is a ban.
As for the current meaning of "wicked," I suspect that's an extrapolation of the 1970s' "bad."
In the same vein, there are words that seem to be antonyms but are in fact synonyms, such as "flammable" and "inflammable."
Hope someone knows what these two groups of words are called.
linguaphile
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I initiated a discussion on this very topic on another website (Atlantic Monthly's Word Fugitives) and I think that we eventually settled on enantiodromic to describe such a word; from enantiodromia, which means the changing of something into its opposite -- a process that most such words obviously have to go through to arrive at having two opposite meanings!
Some of the suggestions were: Janus words, auto-antonyms, contronyms, antagonyms and schizonyms. Here is a link to that discussion, which itself includes links to examples and other discussions:
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/fugitives/diametrical.htm
here are a couple of other examples: overlook (or oversee), peruse (hi Jeff!) and anabasis (military advance or retreat).
and here's one that has certainly gone in contrary directions: sanguine, which can mean 'bloodthirsty' or 'optimistic'.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...by the way, an example of such a word which is not enantiodromic is cleave, which is often given as an example of a contronym [my personal choice amongst these terms] but which actually evolved from two separate and unique words that came to have the same spelling!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Perhaps we could look at phrases which are their own antonym such as "begs the question". Oh no, let's not!
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old hand
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old hand
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In many cases, emotionally charged words, in the course of their history, change over to the opposite sense, e.g. "terrific". So the opposite significations are not really simultaneous. Antonyms, in the strict sense, are those that are actually used in opposition in a phrase. You can't say, of a novel, "the plot is terrific, but the style is terrific."
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journeyman
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journeyman
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I was under the impression that the use of wicked to mean good was something that was common in West African languages and which got translated into English use by African Americans. I thought that, although it has recently become more widespread in use, it has long been used by African Americans and Black West Indians. Is this true and, if so, is it also true for Spanish and Portuguese speaking descendents of Black slavery.
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stranger
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stranger
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Rats! Cleave has always been my favorite among these words and now I learn that it isn't one. Can you give the derivation of the two?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the etymologies are tortuous but they both come through Old High German; one from kleben to stick, and the other from klioban to split.
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