Citizendia
Your Ad Here

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.

Synonyms are different words with identical or at least 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 σύν ("syn") "with" and ὄνομα ("onoma") "name". The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c 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)

Synonyms can be any part of speech (e. Doris Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943 in Brooklyn New York) is an award-winning American Author and Historian. In Grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions), as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. More examples of English synonyms are:


Note that the 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, expired as "having lost validity" (as in grocery goods) doesn't necessarily mean death.

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 claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. A lexicographer is a person devoted to the study of Lexicography, especially an author of a Dictionary. Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Phonic may refer to A synonym of Phonetic, adjective pertaining to sounds or speech make them unique. However, many people feel that the synonyms they use are identical in meaning for all practical purposes, and are interchangeable. 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, such as a long arm and 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

The purpose of a thesaurus is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms. A thesaurus is a book that contains Synonyms and sometimes Antonyms, in contrast to a Dictionary, which contains Definitions and Pronunciations

Contents

". . . there is no such thing as a true synonym. "

The use of a human natural language is a matter of agreement between people and names of things (words) are arbitrarily given to objects. Such names are meant to identify things, etc. and are therefore unique identifiers at the start, though may be longer than a single word. Hence you need disambiguation in defining the meaning of wikipedia entry words too. So what you have is a list of words that may replace each other subject to various contextual circumstances.

"Those who work with language know that there is no such thing as a true synonym. Even though the meanings of two words may be the same - or nearly so - there are three characteristics of words that almost never coincide: frequency, distribution and connotation. "1

This is well reflected in various new English dictionaries where you find frequency data next to a dictionary entry, etc.

One of the major achievements in lexicography belongs to a Hungarian translator Tibor Bartos, who compiled his Magyar szótár by claiming the very same idea as above. [1]

Related terms

Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. In Lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male: female, long: short For example:

The words synonym and antonym are themselves antonyms.

Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a specific instance of that category. In Linguistics, a hyponym is a Word or Phrase whose semantic range is included within that of another word In Linguistics, a hyponym is a Word or Phrase whose semantic range is included within that of another word For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a hyponym of vehicle.

See also

External links

  1. ^ Laurence Urdang in the Introduction to The Synonym Finder, (1979 Rodale Press, ISBN 0-87857-243-0) ". . . There is no such thing as a true synonym. "

Dictionary

synonym

-noun

  1. (semantics, with respect to a given word or phrase) A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, the word or phrase.
  2. (zoology, with respect to a name for a given taxon) Any of the formal names for the taxon, including the valid name (i.e. the senior synonym).
  3. (botany, with respect to a name for a given taxon) Any name for the taxon, usually a validly published, formally accepted one, but often also an unpublished name.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic