antonym

Etymology

The OED's revised entry forms it from English anti- + -onym, after synonym;^[2][3][4] Barnhart allows this too, perhaps partly suggested by Ancient Greek ἀντωνυμία (antōnumía, “pronoun; interchange of names”).^[5] Merriam-Webster, Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead treat it as borrowed from French antonyme,^[6][7][8][9] which Merriam-Webster takes as a back-formation, after synonyme, from antonymie (“opposition of words with contrary senses”), a borrowing of the Greek word.^[6] Klein and Collins derive it directly from that Greek noun.^[10][11] The French word is dated to 1842 by the OED and Etymonline and to 1866 by Barnhart,^[2][12][5] and Etymonline dates German Antonym by 1859.^[12] Its parts are ἀντί (antí, “against, instead of”) and ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”), the dialect form of ὄνομα (ónoma),^[10] from Proto-Indo-European *no-men- (“name”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A word opposite in meaning to another: 1857, in the British Controversialist.^[2] This antedates the 1867 of Etymonline and the 1870 of Barnhart.^[12][5]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline suggests that C. J. Smith's Synonyms and Antonyms (1867) may have introduced it to English, although the OED has an earlier record.^[12][2] Smith argued that the Greek word's idea of substitution amounted to opposition in verbal debate, and that this, with the analogy of synonym, “seemed to render Antonym a preferable word to Counterterm”.^[2] A reviewer in the same year called it “a new formation but useful”.^[12] The rival counterterm has faded.^[12][2]

Timeline

• 1857 – a word opposite in meaning to another.^[2]
• 1867 – in the title of C. J. Smith's Synonyms and Antonyms.^[2][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A word that means the opposite of another word, as hot is of cold; opposed to synonym.^[11][6][2]

Word family

• antonymic
• antonymy
• antonymous

Related words

• synonym
• anonym
• antonomasia
• anti-
• name
• -onym

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com