Synonym - Wikipedia

Words or phrases of the same meaning For other uses, see Synonym (disambiguation).

A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that has a similar or identical meaning to another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language.[2] For example, in English, words like begin, start, commence, and initiate are synonyms: they are synonymous. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be used interchangeably without changing the sentence's meaning.

Words may be synonymous in only one particular sense: for example, long and extended in the context long time or extended time are synonymous, but long cannot be used in the phrase extended family.

Synonyms with identical meanings share a seme or denotational sememe, while those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field. The former are sometimes known as cognitive synonyms, and the latter are referred to as near-synonyms,[3] plesionyms,[4] or poecilonyms.[5]

Lexicography

[edit]

Some lexicographers argue that no synonyms are identical (in all contexts or social levels of language) due to differences in etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, connotations, ambiguous meanings, and usage, etc.[6] For example, feline is more formal than cat, and a long arm is not the same as an extended arm, as long and extended are not always interchangeable. Synonyms can also be used as euphemisms.

Metonymy is sometimes a type of synonymy. For example, White House is often used as a synonym of the administration to refer to the U.S. executive branch under a specific president.[7] In this context, metonymy functions as a hyponym of synonymy.[citation needed]

The study of synonymy, polysemy, hyponymy, and hypernymy is essential in information science for taxonomy and ontology.[8] This analysis is also important in pedagogy and machine learning for word-sense disambiguation.[9]

Etymology

[edit]

The term synonym is derived from the Latin word synōnymum, which was borrowed from the Ancient Greek word synōnymon (συνώνυμον). It is composed of the Greek elements sýn (σύν, meaning 'together, similar, alike') and -ōnym- (-ωνυμ-), a form of onoma (ὄνομα, meaning 'name').[10]

Sources

[edit]

Synonyms in a language can come from different linguistic strata. In English, superstratum words from Norman French and Old English coexist, creating words like people, liberty, archer (from Norman French) and folk, freedom, bowman (from Old English).[11] For more examples, see the list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English.

Loanwords are frequently used as synonyms, often borrowed from the dominant culture's language in a region. European languages commonly borrow from Latin and ancient Greek for technical terms, while native terms are used in everyday language. In East Asia, languages like Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese incorporate Chinese borrowings alongside native words. Arabic and Persian are significant sources of synonymous borrowings in Islamic cultures.

In Turkish, kara and siyah both mean 'black', with kara being a native Turkish word and siyah a borrowing from Persian. In Ottoman Turkish, water is often referred to as su (Turkish), âb (Persian), or mâ (Arabic), "such a triad of synonyms exists in Ottoman for every meaning, without exception". These synonyms in Ottoman Turkish offer nuances and variations in meaning or usage.[12]

In English, Latin (L) and Greek (Gk) terms are often synonymous with Germanic ones. For example, thought and notion (L) are synonymous with idea (Gk), while ring and circle (L) are synonymous with cycle (Gk). English typically uses the Germanic term as a noun, but employs Latin and Greek adjectives. For instance, hand and manual (L) are synonymous with chiral (Gk), and heat and thermal (L) are synonymous with caloric (Gk). In some cases, the Germanic term has become rare or limited to specific meanings, such as tide, time/temporal, and chronic.[13]

Many bound morphemes in English are borrowed from Latin and Greek, serving as synonyms for native words or morphemes. For example, fish corresponds to pisci- (L) and ichthy- (Gk).

Coinages are another source of synonyms, often motivated by linguistic purism. For example, the English word foreword was coined to replace the Romance term preface. In Turkish, the word okul was created to replace the Arabic-derived mektep and mederese, although the latter terms are still used in certain contexts.[14]

Uses

[edit]

Synonyms often convey subtle differences in meaning or are employed in various registers of speech or writing.

Different technical fields may use synonyms to express specific technical distinctions.

Elegant variation is the practice of avoiding repetition of the same word in proximity by using synonyms. However, modern style guides often criticize this practice.

Examples

[edit]

Synonyms can be any part of speech, as long as both words are of the same part of speech. Examples:

• noun: drink and beverage
• verb: buy and purchase
• adjective: big and large
• adverb: quickly and speedily
• preposition: on and upon

Synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words. For example, pupil refers to the aperture in the eye, not a student. He expired is synonymous with he died, but my passport has expired cannot be replaced with my passport has died.

A thesaurus or synonym dictionary lists similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.[15]

• The word poecilonym is a rare synonym of the word synonym. It is not entered in most major dictionaries and is a curiosity or piece of trivia for being an autological word due to its meta nature as a synonym of synonym.
• Antonyms are words that have opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example, hot ↔ cold, large ↔ small, thick ↔ thin, synonym ↔ antonym
• Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that represent a broader category and a specific instance within that category. For instance, vehicle is a hypernym of car, while car is a hyponym of vehicle.
• Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings. For example, witch and which are homophones in most accents because they are pronounced the same way.
• Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. For example, record can refer to both the act of recording a song and keeping a record of documents.
• Homonyms are words that share the same pronunciation and spelling but have different meanings. For example, rose can refer to a type of flower or the past tense of rise.

See also

[edit]

• -onym
• Cognitive synonymy
• Elegant variation, the gratuitous use of a synonym in prose
• Semantic equivalence (linguistics)
• Synonym (taxonomy)
• Synonymy in Japanese
• Synset, a set of synonyms in computational linguistics
• Thesauri and synonym dictionaries – Reference work for synonyms

References

[edit]

1. ^ K.4375
2. ^ "Synonym | Definition, Meaning, & Examples". Britannica. 27 February 2024.
3. ^ Stanojević, Maja (2009), "Cognitive synonymy: a general overview" (PDF), Facta Universitatis, Linguistics and Literature Series, 7 (2): 193–200.
4. ^ DiMarco, Chrysanne, and Graeme Hirst. "Usage notes as the basis for a representation of near-synonymy for lexical choice." Proceedings of 9th annual conference of the University of Waterloo Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary and Text Research. 1993.
5. ^ Grambs, David. The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot. WW Norton & Company, 1997.
6. ^ "In the strictest sense, synonymous words scarcely exist". Standard Dictionary (Funk & Wagnalls, 1894), entry for synonyms or synonymous, as quoted in Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam (Merriam-Webster ser.), [4th ed.] 1973 (SBN 0-87779-141-4)), p. 19a (Survey of the History of English Synonymy, in Introductory Matter); accord, Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms, id., pp. 23a–25a, passim (Synonym: Analysis and Definition (titular word & colon italicized in original & subtitle not), in Introductory Matter).
7. ^ "World Architecture Images – The White House". essential-architecture.com. Archived from the original on November 10, 2007. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
8. ^ Hirst, Graeme. "Ontology and the lexicon." Handbook on ontologies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009. 269–292.
9. ^ Turney, Peter D. (2008). "A Uniform Approach to Analogies, Synonyms, Antonyms, and Associations". Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Computational Linguistics - Volume 1. COLING '08. Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, US: Association for Computational Linguistics: 905–912. arXiv:0809.0124. ISBN 978-1-905593-44-6.
10. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st edition, 1919, s.v.
11. ^ Bradley, Henry (1922). The Making of English. Macmillan and Company, Limited.
12. ^ Ziya Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism, 1968, p. 78
13. ^ Carl Darling Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, 1949, reprinted as ISBN 0226079376
14. ^ Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success, 1999, ISBN 0198238568, p. 44, 70, 117
15. ^ "Synonym dictionary words and phrases". www.allacronyms.com. Retrieved 2018-04-27.

External links

[edit]

The dictionary definition of synonym at Wiktionary

v t e Lexicology
Major terms	Lexical item Lexicon Lexis Word
Elements	Chereme Glyphs Grapheme Lemma Lexeme Morpheme Phoneme Seme Sememe
Semantic relations	Antonymy Hypernymy and hyponymy Meronymy and holonymy Idiom Lexical semantics Semantic network Synonym Troponymy
Functions	Function word Headword
Fields	Controlled vocabulary English lexicology and lexicography International scientific vocabulary Lexicographic error Lexicographic information cost Linguistic prescription Morphology Specialized lexicography
Linguistics portal

Authority control databases
International	GND
National	United States France BnF data Czech Republic Israel
Other	Yale LUX