This article deals with the general meaning of the term "synonym". For biological synonyms, see Synonym (taxonomy) In scientific nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names used for a single taxon. Usage and terminology are different for zoology and botany.
Synonyms are different words (or sometimes phrases) with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine syn (σύν) ("with") and onoma (ὄνομα) ("name"). The words car and automobile are synonyms. Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:
- "a widespread impression that … Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns Goodwin Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer and historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (which won the)
Synonyms can be any part of speech In grammar, a lexical category is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed (e.g. nouns Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase, verbs A verb is a doing word . In syntax, a verb is a word (part of speech) that usually denotes an action (bring, read), an occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It may also agree with the, adjectives In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent. Some examples can be seen in the box to the right. Collectively, adjectives form one of the traditional English eight parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words, adverbs An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences and other adverbs, except for nouns; modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives or prepositions In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. For example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing the prepositional phrase "on the sofa". In English, the most used prepositions are "of", "to", "in",), as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. More examples of English synonyms are:
- student and pupil (noun)
- petty crime and misdemeanor (noun)
- buy and purchase (verb)
- sick and ill (adjective)
- quickly and speedily (adverb)
- on and upon (preposition)
Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Similarly, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.
In English many synonyms evolved from a mixture of Norman French and English words, often with some words associated with the Saxon countryside ("folk", "freedom") and synonyms with the Norman nobility ("people", "liberty").
Some lexicographers General lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Such a dictionary is usually called a general dictionary or LGP dictionary. Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and when they entered the languages in question. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that, orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek ὀρθός orthós ("correct") and γράφειν gráphein ("to write"). Orthography is distinct from typography, phonic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms A euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker. It also may be a substitution of a description of something or someone rather than the name, to avoid revealing.
The purpose of a thesaurus A thesaurus is a work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning , in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.
Related terms
Antonyms In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example:
- short and tall
- dead and alive
- increase and decrease
The words synonym and antonym are themselves antonyms.
Hypernyms In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic range is included within that of another word, its hypernym. For example, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and crimson are all hyponyms of red , which is, in turn, a hyponym of colour and hyponyms In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic range is included within that of another word, its hypernym. For example, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and crimson are all hyponyms of red , which is, in turn, a hyponym of colour are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a specific instance of that category. For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a hyponym of vehicle.
Homonyms In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy are words that sound or are spelled the same, but have different meanings.
See also
- -onym The suffix –onym, in English, means "word, name," and words ending in –onym refer to a specified kind of name or word, most of which are classical compounds. For example, an acronym is a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term
- Synonym ring In metadata a Synonym ring or synset, is a group of data elements that are considered semantically equivalent for the purposes of information retrieval. These data elements are frequently found in different metadata registries. Although a group of terms can be considered equivalent, metadata registries store the synonyms at a central location
- Thesaurus A thesaurus is a work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning , in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations
- Cognitive synonymy Cognitive synonymy is a property of words or terms distinguished from similarity of mental associations, connotations, emotive responses, and poetic value; it is the information that a word or term expresses such that it is synonymous with a different word's cognitive meaning . In this sense it is a more precise, technical definition of '
External links
- Synonyms at Synonyms.Me
- Synonyms.net - Online synonyms thesaurus reference resource that also provides images for search terms.
- Synomizer! - supports word and a unique text analysis in five languages.
- Thesaurus - Online synonyms in English, Italian, French and German.
- Free Online English Thesaurus and Dictionary. Free Online English Thesaurus and dictionary containing synonyms, related Words, antonyms, definitions, idioms, words and terms using Merriam Websters Thesaurus, Wordnet Reference and Roget's Thesaurus Definitions.
- Synonym tool for websites - creates lists of synonyms for arbitrary page on WWW
- English Synonym Dictionary - offers 500 searches for synonym per user per day
- Synonym Thesaurus
- Synonyms - Over 100 000 synonyms
- English - Synonyms - Free Dictionary Translation
- French synonyms
- iGoogle Gadget - Synonym Gadget for iGoogle
- English synonyms
- Synonym, thesaurus - Thesaurus database
Categories: Lexical semantics | Types of words | Greek loanwords
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Sierra Sun
... its people give to us, students of South America, gives flow to the term first world, we learned in South America as a synonym for the United States. ...
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Wednesday January 30 2008 Google s Synonym for Scientology Cult Just yesterday I posted on the Googlebomb if it s one that when you enter dangerous cult into Google Scientology pops up as first result Well there s more if you enter ~scientology
zayzayem
Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:28:59 GM
Pandemic is not a . synonym. for crisis. 1 06 2009 necessarily. In this case it's more SNAFU. I read this weekend's Sunday Herald during lunch today. There was a double page spread on the growing Swine Flu Crisis! (251 Infected!*). ...
Q. Greetings friends, I have been to synonym.com and Merriam-Webster Online and have searched the two paperback copies of Thesauruses and still cannot find a synonym for commercialization. Any ideas?
Asked by Kai - Sat Jan 10 00:18:48 2009 - - 7 Answers - 0 Comments
A. development saleability advertisement depreciation degradation When looking for synonyms of nouns, it is best to start with the verb form. Once you have located the appropriate synonym, change it to the noun form if it is suitable.
Answered by Butterfly - Sat Jan 10 00:26:50 2009


