antonym
noun
Simple meaning
A word which has the opposite meaning of another word.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
antuhnimSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈæntənɪm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
semantics
A word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word, in which case the two words are antonyms of each other
“To him the antonym of `gay' was `depressed'”
semantics
A word which has the opposite meaning of another word.
A word that describes one end of a scale, while its opposite describes the other end, such as large versus small; a gradable antonym.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word, in which case the two words are antonyms of each other
Used this way, antonym is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“To him the antonym of `gay' was `depressed'”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “antonym of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: antonym of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use antonym
- “To him the antonym of `gay' was `depressed'”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Antonyms that are commonly associated (e.g., `wet' and `dry').
Antonyms whose opposition is mediated (e.g., the antonymy of `wet' and `parched' is mediated by the similarity of `parched' to `dry').
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.