What are words called that are opposite in meaning?

Answer 1

Words that are opposite or nearly opposite in meaning are called antonyms.

Examples are big and small, or long and short. Not all words have antonyms.

When two antonyms are used together for effect, it is called an oxymoron.

(see the related question)

Answer 2

Antonym means the opposite; synonym means the same. Take the first two letters of each word and you can remember them. Take the AN and switch it to stand for Not Alike; pronounce SY aloud and you get SI for similar.

Answer 3

A word which has two opposite meanings is called an auto-antonym, contranym or Janus word (Janus being the Roman god with two faces, and the source of the word January).

One such word is cleave, which means both to cut apart and to join together.

Answer 4

The word "let" has as one of its most common meanings "to permit". E.g. "My mother lets me drive her car, honestly." But in the phrase "without let or hindrance" and in the line from Shakespeare's Hamlet "I'll make a ghost of him who lets me" it means the exact opposite: "to prevent".

The verb "to cleave" normally means to cut into two parts. Hence, a meat cleaver. But in the King James translation of the Bible it is often used to stick two things together, the exact opposite as in Job 38:38 "When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together "

Answer 5

They are called antonyms if they mean the opposite, or nearly the opposite.

Answer 6

Which two words have opposite meanings? Voyage and report Sail and send Country and passage Found and lost

Answer 7

antonyms
oxymoron

Answer 8

grims