Whois & Analysis for synonyms.com

In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship, like the opposite pairs big: small, long: short, and precede: follow.

The notion of incompatibility here refers to the fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member.

For example, something that is long entails that it is not short.

It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites.

The relationship between opposites is known as opposition.

A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question What is the opposite of X ?.

In general usage, a thesaurus is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning (containing synonyms and sometimes antonyms), in contrast to a dictionary, which provides definitions for words, and generally lists them in alphabetical order.

The main purpose of such reference works is to help the user "to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed" – to quote Peter Mark Roget, architect of the best known thesaurus in the English language.

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.

By extension, the term "the etymology (of a word)" means the origin of the particular word.

A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language.

Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.

The word comes from Ancient Greek sýn ("with") and ónoma ("name").

An example of synonyms are the words begin, start, commence, and initiate.

Words can be synonymous when meant in certain senses, even if they are not synonymous in all of their senses.

For example, if one talks about a long time or an extended time, long and extended are synonymous within that context.

Synonyms with exact meaning share a seme or denotational sememe, whereas those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field.

Some academics call the former type cognitive synonyms to distinguish them from the latter type, which they call near-synonyms.

Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system.

The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words can represent experience, have been debated since Gorgias and Plato in Ancient Greece.

Thinkers such as Rousseau have argued that language originated from emotions while others like Kant have held that it originated from rational and logical thought.

20th-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that philosophy is really the study of language.

Major figures in linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky.