antonym
/ˈæntənɪm/noun
A word with the opposite meaning of another
From Greek ant- (opposite).
Lineage
ant-
-onym
The story
A word that sounds as if it has always been sitting in the dictionary is actually a fairly recent invention. French had antonyme by the 1840s, and English settled on antonym in the 1860s, with the Reverend C. J. Smith helping popularize it in his 1867 book Synonyms and Antonyms. Its two Greek pieces are wonderfully literal: anti means “against” or “opposite,” while -onym means “name,” the same naming element found in synonym, pseudonym, eponym, and anonymous. Before antonym caught on, English could use the clunky counterterm—but that rival quietly disappeared, like a runner-up in a vocabulary contest. Remember the image: an antonym is a word whose “name” stands facing another word across an invisible line.
Modern usage
A joking or nonstandard use for “aunt and the people she associates with”; also sometimes used simply to mean “opposite.”
- Heard in
- internet slang
Words from the same roots
ant- · Ancient Greek, ‘opposite; against’
Derivedanti, antithesis, antipathetic, antagonist