An antonym is a word with an opposite meaning to another, for example stop and go.
- Words without opposite meanings
Many people think all words must have an opposite meaning, but there are lots of words that do not have opposites. Some examples of such words include flower, shed, car, cup, t-shirt and pebble. You will probably notice that these words tend to be nouns.
Just as there are lots of words without an opposite word, there are lots that do have an opposite word. Some examples of these include; hot and cold; up and down; back and forth; wrong and right; left and right; hard and soft; sweet and sour; wet and dry and on and off to name just a few. You will notice that these words tend to be descriptive words (these are known as adjectives) or doing words (these are known as verbs).
There are a lot of people who grow up having no idea about what the differences are between antonyms, verbs, adjectives etc. However, knowing these is quite important. Knowing what each of these words means will help you a great deal when trying to understand English language. There are many rules that make up English writing and speaking, and understanding the relevance of such terms will help you to understand where such words should be used.
- How to improve your knowledge
If you are still at school, ask your English teacher if you can have a book, or worksheet, on antonyms. There are a lot of books designed for middle and high school students to help explain these terms and will give good examples. There are also numerous websites on English language that will help explain the difference between different types of word.
