A fascintaing though very small class of paired words is "homophonic antonyms" or "antonymic homophones." (These are both my own coinages as far as I know.) That is, words that sound alike but mean exactly opposite things. My classic example is To "raise" (build) a building and then "raze" (destroy) it to the ground. then there's another one that comes close without being perfect: All credit cards "accepted" "except".... Can anyone add to this list?

cleave/cleave

I saw an entire crossword puzzle once with the "cleave/cleave, sanction/sanction" theme - but this is slightly different: homophones rather than homonyms, i.e. different spellings and opposite meanings, rather than same spelling/divergent meanings. We'll need a slightly different set of instances, then...

All credit cards "accepted" "except"....

Although very, very slight, I caught myself making a bit more of a stressed "ack" (acc...) than the "eck" (exc...) when I read those to my mind the first time, yet speaking them out produced much more similar sounds.

When your contract expires you could either re-sign or resign.

Another category of homophonic antonymns would be phrases, clauses or sentences that sound alike but have quite different or even opposite meanings. One that my wife used the other day without realising it was: "my back's seizing up" which sounds almost the same as "my back's easing up"

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...that would be a subset of Mondegreens, a kind of ambiguous phrase deriving its name from a misunderstanding:

A poem read
"...they took the Lord and laid him on the green..."
but it was mis-heard as
"...they took the Lord and Lady Mondegreen..."

Hypertension/hypotension (in some British pronunciations).



The cricket captain expected his batsmen to be bold/The cricket captain expected his batsmen to be bowled.

She likes being chaste/She likes being chased.

I know some strong people throughout the government/I know some strong people threw out the government.

Innumerable (too many to be counted) and enumerable (able to be counted) is my personal favorite.

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Also, irrupt (break in) and erupt (break out).

And don't forget EARRUPT - "My tympanic membrane just broke"... [scuttle-off-quickly-and-hide emoticon]

Sound off = mute

Louis XIII died in 1643; the Sun King then reigned until 1715.

Louis XIII died in 1643; the son king then rained until 1715.

His kids ran the cattle ranch, and it was named "Focus," because that's where the sons raise meat.

Road vehicle/rowed vehicle

Reckless drivers are seldom wreckless drivers.

If you have all the parts, you have a whole; if you don't have all the parts, you have a hole.

Closely related is the text that I sent my wife who is currently skiing in a bit of a heat wave. She didn't message me to say how it was so I sent the following:

Well - what's the verdict?
Was the trip worthwhile or worthless?
Are the slopes awesome or awful?
Will the skiing be terrific or terrible, appealing or appalling?
Will you be on-piste or pissed off?
Will you be wining or whining
Do tell.

"This is a place I find solace/soulless" (and hello wordsmiths - I was glad to find an internet place for this word nerdery!!)

(I know it is more of an approximately antonymic homophonic sentence relying of multiple the meanings of "find", rather than a pair single word antonym homophones, but nonetheless pretty awesome, I reckon)

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