Tricky words in English that change shoes on the go

We all know what antonyms are. These are words whose meanings are opposite to each other. High-low, far-close. They are in any language and we are used to the fact that these are different words.

After all, one word cannot have opposite meanings, right? It turns out that it can. For example, “overlook”. One of the meanings is “to consider” and the second is “not to notice.”

Words that are themselves antonyms are called counteronyms by linguists. But if in Russian you can count them on your fingers, then in English there are quite a few of them. And the meaning of such words will completely depend on the context and common phrases. Today we will talk specifically about contronyms.

To begin with, let’s figure out how it happened so that one word has several opposite meanings. Linguists don’t come up with thoughts like: “Oh, let this word be its own antonym! This will be a joke! ” It doesn’t work that way. But the historical development of the language works, which is guilty of such curiosities.

There are several mechanisms for the formation of counter-names.

Complete homography – when two different words merge into one

To explain the first one, let us take the word “cleave“. The dictionary gives two opposite meanings:

to join or adhere closely

to split or divide, especially by cutting

“Join and bond together” versus “split and cut”. To fully understand the joke that history has made, one must turn to Old English.

In Old English, the verb “divide” was represented by the word “clēofan”. And “connect” sounded like “clifian”. They were pronounced differently. But in the course of the historical development of the language, these two words first began to sound similar, and then completely merged into one word with several meanings.

If it is quite formal from the point of view of linguistics, then “cleave“In the meaning of” attach “and”cleave“In the meaning of” to separate “are two completely different words with different etymologies. But they are written and sound exactly the same.

A verb from a noun – almost like “Deus ex machina”

The second common reason for creating contronyms is to create verbs from nouns. In English, almost every noun can turn into a verb. And the phrases “he two-fingered a cigarette” (he pulled out a cigarette with two fingers) seems quite natural.

But which verb is derived from a noun is often clear only from the context. For example, let’s take the noun “seed” – “seeds”. Depending on the context, the verb “seed” means either “sow” or “collect seeds or fruits.”

Seed this apple tree! Its branches are gonna broke! – Collect apples from the apple tree! And then her branches will still break.

Seed the field and wait – it’s all you need to get food. “Sow the field and wait — that’s all it takes to get food.

The main subtlety here is that a verb from a noun does not give a direct answer to what action is being taken – it accurately indicates only the object. In our case, “seeds”. And the meaning indicates the context and practice of using the language.

“Seed the field” is perceived as “seed the field.” To “harvest” there is another word – “harvest”, which is often used in such cases. But “Seed the apple tree” is difficult to perceive as “sow the apple tree”, therefore the phrase within the meaning sounds like “pick fruits from the apple tree”.

Contraonyms in British and American English – the language is the same, but the meanings are different

In rare, but no less interesting cases, radically different meanings of words come across in different dialects of the same language. This is best seen in British and American English.

Historically, British and American English have developed in parallel since the United States gained independence from the British Empire.

“To table” in verb format means “to discuss a question.” However, in British English it means “discuss as soon as possible”, and in American English it means “discuss sometime later.”

A concrete example partially touches on the second principle of creating counteronyms, but there is a difference. Because separately in both British and American English “to table” has an unambiguous meaning. But in the course of the development of the language, the opposite meanings took root in different versions.

Polysemy – confused meanings

Sometimes it is not necessary to look for complex reasons for the appearance of a duality of meanings. It also happens that history separates the meanings of one word and, over time, turns them into completely opposite ones.

For example, the word “bill”. It has quite a few meanings. In one sense, it can denote a banknote, and in the other – a monetary obligation.

– Oh, this fifty-dollar bill is pretty rare – Oh, this fifty-dollar bill is pretty rare.

– I don’t have enough money to pay my medical bill. “I don’t have enough money to pay my medical bill.

That is, the word “bill” can mean both the presence of money and the presence of debt. And this must be understood correctly from the context.

How did it happen that the word “bill” came to mean both money and debt at the same time? The process of creating opposite meanings is very similar in the Russian language.

Paper money was originally called “credit notes”. This meant that the paper is backed by gold and in fact is a debt obligation from the state. One paper ruble could be exchanged for one ruble in gold.

The “money bill” had practically the same meaning in Britain. And historically it so happened that over time it began to be called simply “bill” when it came to banknotes. Because of this simplification, the word “bill” has two almost opposite meanings.

In modern parlance, “bill” simultaneously means both “payment” and “request for payment”.

53 contronyms in English – add to the dictionary right now

To make it easier for you to deal with this rather complex topic, we have prepared for you a dictionary of contronyms that are used more or less often in English.

You can throw them in the English vocabulary dictionary and boost your vocabulary a little.

As you can see, the dictionary is quite large. And these are quite common words that are included in the active vocabulary of most native speakers.

Cramming and learning such words apart from context helps only partially. Indeed, while studying foreign languages, many students remember only one or two meanings of a word. While the real number of meanings can reach several dozen.

The best option is to track them in practice. In books, films, articles, correspondence, live conversation. It is enough to remember that the word has several contradictory meanings – and the specific one is usually easily understood from the context.

The only thing is that you need to know the words of Janus by sight. So don’t be lazy and check out the list above. You will know from which tokens you can and should expect a setup.

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