"Enantiodrome" redirects here. For the Jungian principle of equilibrium, see
Enantiodromia.
A contronym, contranym or autantonym[1] is a word with two
meanings that are
opposite each other. For example, the word cleave can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind together". This feature is also called enantiosemy,[2][3]enantionymy (enantio- means "opposite"), antilogy or autantonymy. An enantiosemic term is by definition
polysemic.
Nomenclature
A contronym is alternatively called an auto-antonym, antagonym, enantiodrome, enantionym, Janus word (after the Roman god
Janus, who is usually depicted with two faces),[1]self-antonym, antilogy, or addad (Arabic, singular didd).[4][5]
Some pairs of contronyms are true
homographs, i.e., distinct words with different
etymologies which happen to have the same form. For instance cleave "separate" is from
Old Englishclēofan, while cleave "adhere" is from Old English clifian, which was pronounced differently.
Other contronyms are a form of
polysemy, but where a single word acquires different and ultimately opposite definitions. For example, sanction—"permit" or "
penalize"; bolt (originally from
crossbows)—"leave quickly" or "fix/immobilize"; fast—"moving rapidly" or "fixed in place". Some English examples result from
nouns being
verbed in the patterns of "add <noun> to" and "remove <noun> from"; e.g. dust, seed, stone.
Denotations and
connotations can drift or branch over centuries. An
apocryphal story relates how
Charles II (or sometimes
Queen Anne) described
St Paul's Cathedral (using contemporaneous English) as "awful, pompous, and artificial", with the meaning (rendered in modern English) of "awe-inspiring, majestic, and ingeniously designed".[6]
"
Literally" has had a literal meaning of "word for word", but its increasing use as a intensifier in colloquial speech can make it express "not literally but with emphasis".[7]
Negative words such as bad[8] and sick sometimes acquire ironic senses by
antiphrasis[9] referring to traits that are impressive and admired, if not necessarily positive (that outfit is bad as hell; lyrics full of sick burns).
Some contronyms result from differences in
varieties of English. For example, to table a bill means "to put it up for debate" in
British English, while it means "to remove it from debate" in
American English (where British English would have "shelve", which in this sense has an identical meaning in American English). To barrack, in
Australian English, is to loudly demonstrate support, while in British English it is to express disapproval and contempt.
In
Latin, sacer has the double meaning "sacred, holy" and "accursed, infamous". Greek δημιουργός gave Latin its demiurgus, from which English got its demiurge, which can refer either to
God as the
creator or to the
devil, depending on philosophical context.
In some languages, a word stem associated with a single event may treat the action of that event as unitary, so in translation it may appear contronymic. For example, Latin hospes can be translated as both "guest" and "host". In some varieties of English, borrow may mean both "borrow" and "lend".
Examples
English
Cleave can mean "to cling" or "to split apart".[1][10]
The
Korean noun
앞(ap) may mean either "future" or "past" (distinguished by context).
Verbs
The
German verb ausleihen, the
Dutch verb lenen, the
Polish verb
pożyczyć, the
Russian verb
одолжить (odolžítʹ), the
Finnish verb lainata, and the
Esperanto verb
prunti can mean either "to lend" or "to borrow", with
case, pronouns, and mention of persons making the sense clear. The verb stem conveys that "a lending-and-borrowing event is occurring", and the other cues convey who is lending to whom. This makes sense because anytime lending is occurring, borrowing is simultaneously occurring; one cannot happen without the other.
The
German verb umfahren can either mean "to drive around" or "to run over". Both variants are distinguished by stress, though.
The
Romanian verb a închiria, the
French verb louer, the Finnish verb vuokrata[19] and the Spanish alquilar[9] and arrendar[20] mean "to rent" (as the
lessee does) as well as "to let" (as the
lessor does).
The
Swahili verb kutoa means both "to remove" and "to add".
The
Chinese word "大败", it means both "be defeated" and "to defeat".
The
Persian verb چیدن (čidan) means both "to pluck" and "to arrange" (i.e. by putting objects down).
In Spanish dar (basic meaning "to give"), when applied to lessons or subjects, can mean "to teach", "to take classes" or "to recite", depending on the context.[21] Similarly with the
French verb apprendre, which usually means "to learn" but may refer to the action of teaching someone.[22] Dutch leren can mean "to teach" or "to learn".
The
Indonesian verbs menghiraukan and mengacuhkan can mean "to regard" or "to ignore".
The
Indonesian/Malay adjective usah can mean "required" or "discouraged" (disambiguated by the use of tidak or tak "don't").
Adverbs
Hindi: कल and
Urdu: کل (kal[kəl]) may mean either "yesterday" or "tomorrow" (disambiguated by the verb in the sentence).
Irish: ar ball can mean "a while ago" or "in a little bit/later on"[23]
The
Latinsinister
lit.'left' meant both "auspicious" and "inauspicious", within the respective Roman and Greek traditions of
augury.[24] The negative meaning was carried on into French and ultimately English.[25]
Latin nimius means "excessive, too much". It maintained this meaning in Spanish nimio, but it was also misinterpreted as "insignificant, without importance".[26][9]
In
Vietnamese, minh means among other things "bright, clear" (from
Sino-Vietnamese明) and "dead, gloomy" (from 冥). Because of this, the name of the dwarf planet
Pluto is not adapted from 冥王星 as in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.[27][28][29]
Spanish dichoso meant originally "blissful, fortunate" as in tierra dichosa, "fortunate land". However it developed an ironic and colloquial meaning "bothersome, unlucky", as in ¡Dichosas moscas!, "Damned flies!".[30]
In translation
Seeming contronyms can arise from translation. In
Hawaiian, for example, aloha is translated both as "hello" and as "goodbye", but the essential meaning of the word is "love", whether used as a greeting or farewell. Similarly,
안녕 (annyeong) in
Korean can mean both "hello" and "goodbye" but the central meaning is "peace". The
Italian greeting ciao is translated as "hello" or "goodbye" depending on the context; the original meaning was "at your service" (literally "(I'm your) slave").[31]
See also
Īhām, ambiguity used as a literary device in Middle Eastern poetry
^Liberman, Anatoly (25 September 2013).
"Etymology gleanings for September 2013". Oxford Etymologist. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 25 September 2013. The coexistence of two opposite meanings in a word is called enantiosemy, and the examples are rather numerous.
^"Janus Words". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 28 June 2020. to ... EFFECT
^The Canadian Oxford dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. p. 1283.
ISBN9780195418163. entangle...disentangle, unravel
^Barber, Katherine, ed. (2004). Canadian Oxford Dictionary (Second ed.). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press Canada. p. 1580.
ISBN9780195418163.
^"dar".
Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish) (23 ed.). RAE-ASALE. 2021. Retrieved 22 April 2022. 14. tr. Impartir una lección, pronunciar una conferencia o charla. 15. tr. Recibir una clase. Ayer dimos clase de matemáticas. 16. tr. Dicho de un alumno: Recitar la lección.