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First coined by Richard Lederer in the late 80s, contronyms are a whole lotta fun. I’ve also read that they’re called antagonyms, as well. However you want to call ‘em, the basic idea is this: one word that has two meanings which are fairly opposite one another.
An example? Sure, why not: the word cut can mean both to get out of (“We cut school”) and to get into (“We cut in line”).
Another good one: release. On the one hand, it means to set free and on the other hand, it means to sign up for another lease, as in “We are re-leasing the apartment from our schmuck of a landlord even though he raised our rent yet again.”
Yet another: left. If you leave the party early, you’ve left. But if you’re the only loser who remains, you’re the only one left.
Lastly: anxious. You can either be all stressed out now and outta whack with fear about the immediate future (because any Word Wrap devotee knows what’s coming next), or you can be totally looking forward to showing off your smarts by leaving your own contronym in the comments below.
Comments (42)
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Cleave:
to split apart (”cleaving firewood with an axe”)
or
to join together (”Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.” – Gen. ii).
i love these!
posted by atom on 4-13-2007 at 7:08 am
SANCTION:
1) To endorse, condone, or approve
2) To block or prohibit
Example: Congress sanctioned the motion to impose economic sanctions on Iraq.
posted by Wayne Boenig on 4-13-2007 at 7:20 am
Cleave- meaning either to split or to adhere firmly has long been a favorite contronym of mine, though I didn’t know there was such a term.
posted by Mean Joe on 4-13-2007 at 7:25 am
“Cleave” means “to split or separate” or “to adhere or cling”.
“Sanction” means “to permit or approve” or “to punish or penalize”.
“Right” means “conservative” or “correct”.
:: snort ::
posted by Steve Cornman on 4-13-2007 at 7:48 am
“Cleave” is one I’ve always heard. Can mean “to cut apart” or “to put together.”
posted by Griner on 4-13-2007 at 7:56 am
I’ll toss cleave out.
posted by bryan on 4-13-2007 at 7:57 am
Cleave: this contronym can mean either to separate or join, depending on the context. You can cleave a tree in half or (if you’re tying the knot) you can cleave to your wife through marriage.
posted by Chris on 4-13-2007 at 7:57 am
I’ve seen a non-native English speaker get confused by the difference between something “going off” and “turning off.” In the first case, it means “turning on,” and in the second case, it means, well, “turning off.”
posted by Joe on 4-13-2007 at 8:01 am
How about “shaft”? A shaft could be a long hole or a thing that fits into a long hole.
posted by Sid on 4-13-2007 at 8:03 am
I’m not sure if this really applies but it’s a great story.
A friend of mine was leaving for the weekend and was giving her instructions to her husband. She had a new plant and she told her husband, “You can’t water this too much,” where she meant that it would drink and drink water and it’s impossible to give it too much water. He took that statement as “Be careful, this plant can’t be over watered.”
posted by Beth on 4-13-2007 at 8:20 am
Screwed:
It can either mean you are in a lot of trouble or there is something in you.
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 4-13-2007 at 8:21 am
So what do you call two words which seem to be fairly the opposite of each other but actually mean the same thing?
Example:
flammable and inflammable appear to be opposites, but both mean easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly.
posted by Laura on 4-13-2007 at 9:15 am
I’ve always liked “resigned.”
I’m never sure if the guy quit his job or agreed to a contract extention.
posted by Stephen on 4-13-2007 at 9:45 am
What about “turn up the air conditioner”? That can mean cool the room or move the thermatstat to a higher number therefore warming the room.
posted by Brian D. on 4-13-2007 at 10:25 am
What about “I couldn’t care less” and “I could care less”? Granted, the latter is a corruption of the former, original expression, but they are used interchangeably today to mean “I don’t care.”
And I couldn’t care less that this is not an example of a contronym.
posted by Stephanie Chance on 4-13-2007 at 10:36 am
OOOh, #14 drives me batshit.
posted by Jenny in Winston on 4-13-2007 at 1:16 pm
from the Word Detective 10/28/05, “(T)he contradictory definitions reflect “homonyms,” words which are spelled identically but are actually separate words developed from different sources. This is what happened with “cleave.” Both “cleaves” first appeared in Old English, but as separate words with slightly different spellings: “cleave” meaning “to split or cut” was originally “cleofan,” while “cleave” meaning “to stick to” appeared as “cleofian.” While both words were of Germanic origin, they had been separate words since they arose from Indo-European roots (in the case of “cleave” in the “stick” sense, the root was “gloi,” which also eventually gave us “glue”). Unfortunately, as the two words evolved on the way to Modern English, their spellings converged, subsequently confusing just about everyone.”
posted by mudi-b on 4-13-2007 at 2:14 pm
Out: The lights are out (no lights)
The stars are out (many stars)
posted by Gabe on 4-13-2007 at 3:20 pm
Tony – It can mean stylish or trendy
or it could mean my friend Tony, who is neither of those. :-)
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 4-13-2007 at 3:32 pm
dust (remove dust, or add it to reveal fingerprints)
oversight
posted by G. Sassoverde on 4-13-2007 at 4:16 pm
Sanguine means both “bloodthirsty” and “cheerfully confident” or “optimistic”
posted by Daylightrambler on 4-13-2007 at 5:25 pm
Moot. It means “you can argue about this”, and it also means “settled”.
My late father always thought it was funny that the wind would blow things “on off” the road. That’s not quite the same thing, but out of respect for the dead, I had to mention it….
posted by Paul Ding on 4-13-2007 at 7:54 pm
Current headline on CBS news site:
That’s odd steam, if it produces snow….
posted by Paul Ding on 4-13-2007 at 8:01 pm
Hmm. I always heard these called Janus words.
posted by josephchilders on 4-13-2007 at 11:25 pm
citation
-received for meritous actions
-received as a penalty
posted by john on 4-14-2007 at 8:41 am
What about “Mental” -do I need to go any further???
posted by O-Man on 4-14-2007 at 12:19 pm
Similar to Laura’s example, “valuable” and “invaluable” have practically identical meanings.
Also contranyms:
Garnish: as in food, or wages
First-degree: murder, or burns
posted by Allison on 4-14-2007 at 2:05 pm
This is cool… my friend Ed & I love these words… I’d like to submit “refrain”… when it is a verb it means “to hold oneself back”… but as a noun it refers to the part of a song or poem that is “repeated”…
posted by Fitz on 4-15-2007 at 5:03 am
Similar to #14 (”up” applied to air conditioning) is “least”, applied to a future time: “How soon can you have this done?” “Well, by Tuesday at least.” That can mean Tuesday is either the earliest date when the thing should be expected (least amount of time needed) or the latest (least-satisfactory completion date). Ever since I realized how ambiguous this was, I always try to say “earliest” or “latest” instead of “least”.
posted by Mark on 4-15-2007 at 8:40 am
for those of you that enjoy such intricacies of the English language, check out “Words Fail Me”. A book by Teresa Monachino that is sure to amuse…
…”to hold the attention of (someone) pleasantly; to entertain” or “to distract; to puzzle”
heh.
posted by Kathryn on 4-15-2007 at 12:10 pm
My particular favourite is fast:-
Stuck fast means to be fixed in one place.
Fast also means to move away from a place quickly.
p.s. it might help if people actually read and understood the meaning of contronym before posting!
posted by Howard on 4-16-2007 at 6:14 am
How about “secrete”? It can mean to issue forth (poison ivy secretes an oily irritant), or to hide or conceal.
posted by Steve on 4-16-2007 at 9:12 am
Two words with the same spelling and the same pronunciation, but different meaings, are homonyms.
Same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning: homographs.
Different spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning: homophones.
Let’s keep “contronym” for the special examples of homonyms where the different meanings are in fact opposite.
posted by Cheryl Caesar on 4-18-2007 at 5:59 am
As far as one word meaning two opposite things, I’m not sure if this counts because the second meaning developed originally as slang but here goes:
Bad
1) not good, not fresh, not moral or otherwise unsound
2) good, cool, tough, hip
Or, in the immortal words of Huey Lewis, “Sometimes Bad is Bad”.
posted by Kitty on 4-18-2007 at 9:54 am
I disagree with “anxious” qualifying as a contronym. The part about anxious with regard to anxiety is correct, but the other, oft misunderstood type of “anxious” is more correctly termed “eager.” (If I am eager about going to the dance,then I look forward to it, but if anxious, then I am sweating it in a different way.) And shouldn’t a “contronym” be spelled “contranym?”
posted by Clyde on 4-18-2007 at 5:11 pm
Some great examples of contranyms have been given here (along with a few homonyms, of which there are hundreds in the English language).
Contranyms are also called schizophrenic words, autoantonyms, and Janus words).
Here are some more (some better than others):
biweekly: once every 2 weeks vs. 2 times a week
bolt: lock in place (bolt the door) vs. run off (the prisoner will bolt when he gets a chance)
bully: excellent (bully for you) vs. cruel (that kid has bully behavior)
clip: hold together (clip the sheets of paper together) vs. cut off (clip her hair)
demean: conduct in proper manner vs. diminish reputation
dress: remove an outer layer (dress a chicken) vs. add an outer layer (dress your children)
easterly: coming from east vs. going toward east
fair: good vs. only adequate
imposing: impressively good (an imposing speaker) vs. taking unfair advantage (imposing on your hospitality)
livid: pale vs. unusually colored
mean: nasty (he is mean to his sister) vs. excellent (she plays a mean guitar)
overlook: see (from my porch I can overlook the lake) vs. fail to see (don’t overlook the last chapter)
peruse: examine with attention and detal vs. examine in casual or cursory manner
put on the table: defer later discussion vs. open for discussion
ravel: tangle vs. untangle
scan: look intently vs. look casually
sign off: agree to (I’ll sign of on that proposal) vs. abandon or stop (that TV show will sign of the air at midnight)
skinned: outer covering gone (a chicken was skinned) vs. outer covering present (the boat was skinned with aluminum)
out of: inside (she is an accountant who works out of her home) vs. outside (he is out of town)
stem: develop from (does her philosphy of life stem from her past experiences?) vs. block (will those actions stem the flow of immigration?)
temper: make harder (temper steel) vs. make softer (temper punishment)
trip: stumble (don’t trip on the stairs) vs. move gracefully (she can trip happily across the dance floor)
walk around: walk outside (he rang the front doorbell and then walked around the house to the back door) vs. walk inside (because of the rain, she walked around her house looking for something to do)
wear: last (does that fabric wear well?) vs. deteriorate (that fabric will wear a great deal after rough use)
weathered: bore up well (the tent weathered the storm) vs. wore out (my boots have become weathered)
wind up: cause to end (wind up a speech) vs. cause to start or continue (wind up a watch)
posted by Jerry on 4-18-2007 at 7:42 pm
Well, these are only homophones, not homonyms, but for those who aren’t purists, there’s:
raise (to build up) vs. raze (to tear down)
posted by Melanie on 4-18-2007 at 9:01 pm
Once you have set the ALARM, it can go off or you can turn it off.
posted by Marvin on 4-19-2007 at 6:52 am
Diet: His diet consisted of… (all inclusive, everything you eat) I’m going on a diet (trying to eat little, eating certain things only)
posted by Scarlett on 4-19-2007 at 12:44 pm
There’s always a debate in my family whenever someone says “below par.”
Par means the average or what’s expected. So… on one hand, with golf, if a pro-golfer’s work is “below par” that would mean that it was good, better than average/expected, right? (I’m not a golfer…)
On the other hand, when some non-pro-golfer’s work is “below par” it’s not good, it’s worse than expected.
Maybe not a contronym, per se, but a funny phrase that you hear all the time.
posted by ZoaMoo on 4-21-2007 at 12:05 pm
Thanks, Clyde, for pointing out the important distinction between “anxious” and “eager” — the mis-use of which is my #2 pet peeve.
(My #1 pet peeve is the ubiquitous use of “hopefully” — full of hope — when in fact the speaker’s intention is to communicate “I hope” or “With luck” or “Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise” Aarrgghhh, it’s the screech of fingernails on my grammatical blackboard… )
posted by SylThePyl on 4-25-2007 at 3:08 pm
What about the classic Aloha? It can mean both hello and good-bye in Hawai’i.
I also like the word execute. I think this may qualify as a contranym. To execute a command means to begin or start something and to execute a person means, well…
I don’t know. What do you think?
posted by readinggeek on 5-11-2007 at 12:21 am