ellentettje

Ellentettje is a term used in Hungarian linguistics and lexicography to refer to the opposite of a given word or concept. It designates the antonym, the word or expression that carries the opposite semantic value in a particular domain. In practice, it is used when describing a word’s semantic relation to another word. Common examples include meleg and hideg (hot and cold), nagy and kicsi (big and small), and jó and rossz (good and bad).

Some words have more than one valid antonym depending on sense or context. For gradable adjectives, the opposition can reflect different degrees or axes (for example, "high" versus "low" in different contexts). For non-gradable terms, the opposition is typically binary (for example, living versus non-living).

In dictionaries and other language resources, ellentettje is listed to help learners find opposite terms and to study semantic relationships. The concept is closely related to the general notion of antonymy and to the Hungarian term ellentét, which denotes opposition itself. Etymology links ellentettje to ellentét meaning "opposition," with the possessive suffix -je forming the sense of "its opposite" or "the opposite of it."

See also: antonym; lexicography; Hungarian language.