Antonym: what is it and how to use

While the synonym is a different word with the same meaning as another, the antonym it has a totally opposite meaning to another word.

For each word, there is an antonym. To identify one, it is only necessary to know the word that expresses the opposite idea or to know the prefixes that represent the opposition.

The opposite of a word can be expressed by the prefixes: des, anti, in, among others.

To better understand, let's go to the examples.

Antonym examples

The simplest examples are these:

• Tall short;
• Fat thin;
• Beautiful ugly;
• Bright dark;
• Joyful sad;
• Good bad;
• Sleep – wake up;
• Worker – lazy;
• Joy – anger;
• Love Hate;
• Happiness – sadness;
• Strong weak;

Among other examples, we also have some that may have the compound antonyms by prefixes like:

• Happy – unhappy;
• Manual – anti-manual;
• Ethical – unethical;
• Organized – disorganized;
• Structured – unstructured;
• Fair – unfair;
• Responsible – irresponsible;
• Remediable – irremediable;
• Reversible – irreversible;
• Do – undo;
• Active inactive;
• Concord – discord;
• Construction – deconstruction;
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• Indication – contraindication;
• Information – counterinformation;
• Proof – retest;
• Arguments – counter-arguments;
• Prestige – discredit;
• Rational – irrational;
• Real – unreal;
• Decided – undecided.

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How Antonyms Can Form Antitheses and Paradoxes

With these lists with opposite words, we can form several examples of sentences composed of two figures of speech that we have already shown here: paradoxes and antitheses.

As a reminder, the antithesis brings words with opposite ideas together, while the paradox consists of an apparently contradictory idea, but which makes sense.

Antitheses:

• “I showed proof of the crime, but they took the counterproof into account”;
• “If you are going to discuss religion, politics and football with me, improve your arguments, as I have great counter-arguments”;
• “I don't know how this relationship can work. I'm ugly and she's pretty, I'm obnoxious and she's nice, I'm introverted and she's extroverted, I'm fat and she's thin, I'm poor and she's rich”;
• “Friend, sport is like this: one moment you win, the next you lose. One moment you are happy, the next you are sad”;
• “Decisions have consequences. Indecisions have even more”;
• “You are acting like an irrational animal. You need to think straight and be more rational when making choices”;
• “I so wanted you to be organized like your brother. But, in your room, everything is so disorganized that you get lost in there”;

In all these sentences, there is the antithesis figure of speech that expresses ideas from antonyms. This contrast is what gives the text meaning.

Paradox:

• “To what extent will Brazil stop with so much corruption? To make matters worse, our justice is very unfair;
• "The president of the Ethics Council is so unethical."

The examples above are paradoxical in that they express an idea, initially contradictory, but which makes perfect sense.

In the first example, Justice must serve to live up to its name. Thus, there is nothing more contradictory than an unfair justice, because, as one can interpret in the sentence, the person is part of the Brazilian population disgusted with the impunity of corrupt persons acquitted by the judicial system of the parents. As well as the second example, in which a representative of an entity that seeks to take care of ethics behaves contrary to those he should defend.

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