Opposés

Opposés is the plural noun and adjective form in French for things that are placed against or in contrast with one another. In everyday language it describes elements that differ in position, direction, quality or opinion, such as opposite sides of a street, opposite directions, or opposing viewpoints.

Etymology traces opposés to the Latin oppositus, meaning "placed against," from opponere, "to place against." The term has been adopted in various disciplines to denote contrastive relations between two elements.

In linguistics and lexicography, opposés often correspond to antonyms—words with opposite meanings. Examples include chaud et froid (hot and cold), jour et nuit (day and night), vrai et faux (true and false). Antonyms can be gradable (grande/petite, tall/short), complementary (mariage/solitude) or relational (maître/élève). The label opposés emphasizes the binary or oppositional relationship between terms rather than their shared context.

In mathematics and logic, opposés can refer to the additive inverse: the opposé de x is -x, and the opposite vector is the negation of a direction. In logic, the opposé of a proposition P is its negation, written ¬P. The concept is used to express negation, counterpoints and contrasts within formal systems.

In practice, opposés provide a simple framework for describing contrast, comparison and balance across language, science and everyday reasoning, from spatial orientation to semantic fields and abstract reasoning.