Antonime

Antonime are pairs of words with opposite meanings. They are a basic resource in natural languages for expressing contrast and organizing semantic fields. In Romanian linguistics, antonime is the term used for such pairs. The English word antonym derives from Greek anti- “opposite” and onoma “name.”

Antonyms can be categorized as complementary, gradable, or relational. Complementary antonyms have no intermediate degree (dead/alive, present/absent). Gradable antonyms lie on a scale with a neutral middle (big/small, hot/cold, happy/sad). Relational or converse antonyms describe opposite roles in a relation (buy/sell, teacher/pupil, give/receive).

Antonyms can arise by negation (unhappy, inaudible) but not all antonyms come from negation; some are lexical pairs that are inherently opposite (good/bad). They vary across languages in how complete the opposition is and in how they interact with context, polarity, and entailment. In lexicography, antonyms are listed as sets or pairs, with notes about usage, register, and frequency. Antonymy also contributes to semantic field studies and thesauri.

Examples include English–Romanian pairs such as big–small, hot–cold, dead–alive; mare–mic, bun–rau, cald–rece. Cross-linguistic study shows some languages have extensive graded antonyms, while others rely more on derivational negation. Overall, antonime play a central role in word meaning, lexical relations, and language learning.