If someone has long hair, she does not have short hair is what comes first to our mind. For example if we say that subjects in an experiment were all males, we are in effect saying that they were not females. Antonyms also tell us that one of the pairs is not like the other. Day and night, black and white, bright and dark, long and short etc are examples of antonyms. Though to die and to expire remain the same and one can use either of the two to refer to a person who has passed away (third synonym), you cannot say that your passport has died (it has obviously expired).Īntonyms are sets of different words that have opposite or nearly opposite meaning.

One can easily see that car and automobile mean the same and can be easily interchanged. George took out his automobile to get to the police station.George took out his car to go to the police station.If the connotation of a sentence remains the same with two different words, the two words can be referred to as synonyms. Despite this, synonyms can be used interchangeably. There are experts who claim that no two words have identical meanings in all contexts or usage. Some words have different meanings, and only one meaning coincides with another word.

Different words having similar meanings are called synonyms and help people to express their feelings in a better way. Here, it can be seen that sick and ill are two words that have similar meanings. If someone is sick, it is right to say that he is ill. For those who are natives of English speaking countries, there is no problem in appreciating the difference between a synonym and an antonym but for people belonging to other cultures and languages, it is difficult to differentiate between synonyms and antonyms. English language is full of sets of different words that have same or similar meaning, and it also has scores of sets of different words that have opposite or almost opposite meanings.

What is synonym and antonym