Synonyms
& Antonyms are an integral part of grammar. Primarily, they
enhance the vocabulary. They also encourage replacing the old words
with new one & thus bring newness in your speech. Exploring new
words is very motivating & interesting. Besides, using different
synonyms & antonyms attracts the readers and listeners. Hence
the speaker can leave an excellent and everlasting impression. A
brief about synonyms and antonyms is given below.
Synonyms
are defined as the words which have identical meanings. All the words
can have synonyms. Even all the parts of speech including nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions can have a synonym.
However, The meanings may or may not be exact.
For
example the synonym of ‘big’ is ‘large’ & of ‘small’
is ‘little’. The synonyms for the word student are pupil,
scholar, undergraduate, learner etc. The word student means a person
studying in a school or a college while pupil means a person or child
studying in school or privately with a teacher. Their usage will be
clearer with the following examples.
- I am an engineering student.
- He is a pupil of famous singer Lata Mangeshkar.
Similarly
the word scholar means someone who has expertise in some field. For
Example: Raman is a maths scholar. This means that Raman in expert in
Maths. Thus the reader or speaker should ensure that the synonyms
are used efficiently.
Likewise,
using the antonyms effectively brings vividness in speaking &
writing and also makes them vibrant. The Antonyms are the words
opposite to another word. They are basically used to show contrast.
The distinction can be for time such as day- night or morning –
evening, for colours like light – dark, dull – bright, for
comparison like big – small, tall- short, for describing
personality ugly- beautiful, elegant- inelegant etc.
The
antonyms can be further categorized in three categories: -
- Graded Antonyms
- Relational Antonyms
- Complimentary Antonyms
A brief
description of these subtypes along with their examples is given
below.
- Graded Antonyms: As the name suggests, the pair of antonyms fall in this category differ in their degree. They express relationship along a scale of degree.
- Good - Bad
- Happy - Sad
- Beautiful - Ugly
- Smart - Stupid
- Big - Little
- Relational Antonyms:
The
pair of antonyms which have a relationship between them fall in this
category. In this pair a words couldn’t exist without the other.
Examples:
- Back - Front
- Husband - Wife
- Black - White
- Open - Close
- Sell- Buy
- Complimentary Antonyms: The pair of antonyms which have no degree of meaning fall in this category. They are complementary to each other.
- Dead - Alive
- Male - Female
- On - Off
- Present - Absent
- Pass - Fail
- Hit - Miss
While
choosing an antonym, one should keep the context of the word in his/
her mind and then choose the best word which is opposite in its
meaning. The appropriate use of antonyms & synonyms makes the
text & speech striking. The usage of new words spices up the
conversation. But this can only happen when these are used
effectively & at the right place.
Visit our website to learn antonyms word here at http://www.englishleap.com/vocabulary/antonym and for synonyms word here at http://www.englishleap.com/vocabulary/synonyms
