OK, enough with the light stuff. The linguists were getting antsy, threatening to riot. So that must mean it’s time to bring out the heavy guns. Everyone has heard of synonyms (two words that mean the same thing) and antonyms (opposites). But have you ever heard of contronyms? I hadn’t. Not until today.
The full article’s here. Excerpts are below. Read on if you dare, or care.
Here’s an ambiguous sentence for you: “Because of the agency’s oversight, the corporation’s behavior was sanctioned.” Does that mean, “Because the agency oversaw the company’s behavior, they imposed a penalty for some transgression”? Or does it mean, “Because the agency was inattentive, they overlooked the misbehavior and gave it their approval by default”? We’ve stumbled into the looking-glass world of contronyms — words that are their own antonyms.
1. Sanction (via French, from Latin sanctio(n-), from sancire ‘ratify,’) can mean “give official permission or approval for (an action)” or conversely, “impose a penalty on.”
2. Oversight is the noun form of two verbs with contrary meanings, “oversee” and “overlook.” Oversee, from Old English ofersēon (“look at from above”) means “supervise” (medieval Latin for the same thing: super-, “over” plus videre, “to see.”) Overlook usually means the opposite: “to fail to see or observe; to pass over without noticing; to disregard, ignore.”
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The full post includes 23 more contronyms, including “left,” “dust,” “seed,” “trim,” and – my personal favorite – “flog.” It originally appeared on Mental Floss and was published June 15, 2018.
The contronym (also spelled “contranym”) goes by many names, including auto-antonym, antagonym, enantiodrome, self-antonym, antilogy and Janus word, from the Roman god of beginnings and endings, often depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. Can’t get enough of them? The folks at Daily Writing Tips have rounded up even more.
…or something.