Antonym

“ Throughout this book synonyms means words that are similar in meaning or which express the same general idea with shades of difference. Those who use this work should bear in mind that all words that are classified as synonyms cannot be used interchangeably; that there are differences in meaning between them; and that, before using an unfamiliar word, they should ascertain its meaning and usage in a dictionary. Antonyms are words that are opposed to another word in meaning. Such words are helpful when it is desired to express contrasted or conflicting ideas or thoughts. ”

“ In many instances, however, a list of antonyms is unnecessary. For example, no antonyms of good are found after the synonyms of that word because one thinks of bad instantly when considering the opposite of good; and under bad numerous synonyms, which are also the antonyms of good, are found.
It is not an infrequent occurrence for a word to be required that is neither a synonym nor an antonym of a familiar term but merely associated with it in meaning and usage. Such a word cannot when unknown or momentarily forgotten be easily found in a dictionary. ”

“ Turn back to Lists A, B, C, D, E, and F. Discriminate between the members of each pair contained in these lists. Frame sentences to illustrate the correct use of the words.
VII SYNONYMS IN LARGER GROUPS (1) In considering pairs we have, without using the word, been studying synonyms. For most pairs are synonyms (or in some instances antonyms) that hunt in couples. We must now deal with synonyms, and incidentally antonyms, as they associate themselves in larger groups.
A vocabulary is impoverished. Why? Nine times in ten, because of a disregard of synonyms. ”

“ But to prove of how little consequence a knowlege of etymology is to most people, let me mention a few words. The word sincere is derived from the Latin, sine cera, without wax; and thus it came to denote purity of mind. I am confident that not a man in a thousand ever suspected this to be the origin of the word; yet all men, that have any knowlege of our language, use the word in its true sense, and understand its customary meaning, as well as Junius did, or any other etymologist.
Yea or yes is derived from the imperative of a verb, avoir to have, as the word is now spelt. ”

“ Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections; but the Latin has no article.
11. Of these eight parts of speech the first four are capable of Inflection, i.e. of undergoing change of form to express modifications of meaning. In case of Nouns, Adjectives, and Pronouns, this process is called Declension; in case of verbs, Conjugation.
CHAPTER I.—Declension. A. NOUNS.
12. A Noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or quality; as, Caesar, Caesar; Rōma, Rome; penna, feather; virtūs, courage.
1. Nouns are either Proper or Common. ”

“ To parse a noun is to state the class to which it belongs, its gender, number, case, and its grammatical relation to other words in the sentence.
The changes in meaning and use which nouns undergo with or without a change in form, are called their inflections.
The inflections of the noun are number and case.
EXERCISE.
Parse all the nouns in the following sentences:—
Model.—John, a proper, concrete noun; masculine gender; singular number; nominative case, subject of lost.
Teacher’s, a common, concrete noun; masculine or feminine gender; singular number; possessive case, possessing book. ”

“ A verb that is regularly intransitive sometimes takes as object a noun whose meaning closely resembles its own.
A noun in this construction is called the cognate object of the verb and is in the objective case (p. 52) .
13. A noun, or a group of words consisting of a noun and its modifiers, may be used adverbially. Such a noun is called an adverbial objective (p. 53) .
14. An appositive is in the same case as the substantive which it limits (p. 42) .
15. A pronoun must agree with its antecedent in gender, number, and person (p. 55) . ”

“ The true meaning of words is that which a nation in general annex to them. Etymology therefore is of no use but to the learned; and for them it will still be preserved, so far as it is now understood, in dictionaries and other books that treat of this particular subject.
4. "The distinction between words of different meanings and similar sound would be destroyed."
"That distinction," to answer in the words of the great Franklin, "is already destroyed in pronunciation." Does not every man pronounce all and awl precisely alike? And does the sameness of sound ever lead a hearer into a mistake? ”

“ In many instances indeed etymology will assist the learned in understanding the composition and true sense of a word; and it throws much light upon the progress of language. But the true sense of a complex term is not always, nor generally, to be learnt from the sense of the primitives or elementary words. The current meaning of a word depends on its use in a nation. This [Pg 401] true sense is to be obtained by attending to good authors, to dictionaries and to practice, rather than to derivation. ”

“ II. The term "etymology" as used in grammar must be carefully distinguished from "etymology" in the sense of word-analysis. Grammatical etymology treats solely of the grammatical changes in words, and does not concern itself with their derivation; historical etymology treats of the structure, composition, and history of words. Thus the relation of loves, loving, loved to the verb love is a matter of grammatical etmology; but the relation of lover, lovely, or loveliness to love is a matter of historical etymology. ”

“ As we rise, too, in the scale of linguistic use, from that which is straightforward and unreflective to that which is elaborate, pregnant, artistic, etymological considerations in many cases rise in value, and constitute an important element in that suggestiveness which invests every word, giving it its delicacy of application, making it full of significance and dignity where another term, coarsely synonymous with it, would be tame and ineffective. A pregnant implication of etymologic meaning often adds strikingly to the force and impressiveness of an expression. ”

“ And in order that the reader may find quickly what he seeks, whenever the first or second letter of a word is changed, we shall mark it with azure blue.' His preface ends with an appeal. 'This arrangement I have worked out with great labour; yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I entreat you therefore, reader, do not contemn my work as something rude and barbarous.'
The most striking feature of the dictionary is its etymology. Almost every word is supplied with a derivation, often very far-fetched. ”

“ But it is equally important to teach that synonyms are not identical and to explain why and how they differ. A person of extensive reading and study, with a fine natural sense of language, will often find all that he wants in the mere list, which recalls to his memory the appropriate word. But for the vast majority there is needed some work that compares or contrasts synonymous words, explains their differences of meaning or usage, and shows in what connections one or the other may be most fitly used. ”

“ NOUN.
Is of one uniform declension in four cases: nominative (subject) ; genitive (possessive) ; dative (indirect objective) ; accusative (direct objective) ; thus—
Every noun in the language follows this declension; i. e. the nominative is changed by a, e, and i to the genitive, dative, and accusative respectively, and s added to each case gives its plural.
(See page 33.)
PRONOUNS.
(a) Personal.
(These follow the declension of nouns, and ol (thou) should be used when a single person is meant.) ”

“ This transformation of meaning conforms to a law of mentality working en masse. It has perplexed the etymologist perhaps more than any other specialist.
The richness of a tongue is owing largely to the facility with which words take on new meanings whilst retaining vestiges of the old. Values are multiplied whenever a word may be used in several senses on as many different occasions. One purpose makes it desirable to employ a word in its broad and general use, while it accords with another aim to restrict its meaning. Metaphorically, a word may mean one thing, and strictly, quite another. ”

“ In giving a foreign synonym when the mind seeks a new native word, the pedagogue does not deal fairly. In this irradiation into the mother tongue, sometimes experience with the sentiment or feeling, act, fact, or object precedes, and then a name for it is demanded, or conversely the sound, size, oddness or jingle of the word is first attractive and the meaning comes later. The latter needs the recognition and utilization which the former already has. ”

“ But always in an enquiring mind there was the insistent WHY? which is a characteristic and a glory of man as a reasoning animal, and hence often a meaning was given to a word that is simply a sort of pun, an endeavour to explain a word by what it looks like in current speech or dialect when there was not the knowledge of earlier times and older tongues which elevates mere guessing into the science of etymology. ”

“ Many etymologies are true which appear improbable, and many appear probable which are not true. As Max Müller says: “Sound etymology has nothing to do with sound. We know words to be of the same origin which have not a single letter in common, and which differ in meaning as much as black and white.” ”

“ I can understand that a beautiful, idle, much idolised woman ... but she!”
Yet, as he was a reader by instinct, he still went on reading:
“Let us treat it as a precious inheritance, but, at the same time, let us never look too closely into it. In speaking, and even in writing, it is a mistake to trouble too much about etymology....”
“And he, my favourite pupil, whom I have invited to my house ... ought he not?...”
“Etymology teaches us that God is He Who shines, and that the soul is a breath, but into these old words men have read meanings which they did not at first possess.”
“Adultery!” ”

“ By a series of suffixes to the names of human beings, birds, fishes, trees, plants, stones, metals, and even actions, events, and feelings, diminutives are obtained, which by their form, present the names so made in different colors; they become more naïve, more childlike, eventually more roguish, or humorous, or pungent. ”

“ Then if on occasion hindered by perpetual business you had no time to compose a speech, did you not fortify yourself with certain hurried yet valuable recreations in the way of study, by collecting synonyms, at times by searching out remarkable words? so as to turn the periods of old writers and their clauses by the system of synonyms [8] ; to render refined what was vulgar, and fresh what was soiled, fit in some image, throw in a figure, embellish with a good old word, add a patina of age. ”

“ The root of the mother-word will stand in the centre, and around her the grove of her children. By influence of taste, diligence, sound sense, and the judicious comparison of different dialects, lexicons will be brought to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental in the signification of words, and to trace the gradual process of transition; while in the derivation of words, and the application of metaphors, we shall behold the invention of the human mind in its act, and more fully understand the logic of ancient figurative language. ”

“ Common nouns ending in o, change it into a to form the feminine; as, son, hijo; daughter, hija. There are some that express their gender by a different word or termination; as, father, padre; mother, madre; bull, toro; cow, vaca; poet, poeta; poetess, poetisa. (See Ollendorff, p. 246.)
Common nouns terminating in an, on, or, add an a to form the feminine; as lion, leon; lioness, leona; shepherd, pastor; shepherdess, pastora.
CASE.
There are two cases, the Nominative and the Objective. The Nominative case expresses the subject of the verb; as, The man gives, El hombre da. ”

“ The Termination of the Infinitive Mood Present Tense, of the Verb Active, in regular Verbs, is always the same as the first Person of the Indicative Mood Present Tense singular; as to love, I love.
The Termination of the second Person Singular is formed out of the first by adding st or est; as I love, thou lovest; I read, thou readest.
The Termination of the third Person singular is formed out of the first by adding th or eth; as I love, he loveth, I read, he readeth; or only by adding s; as he loves, he reads. ”

“ So darkness, which in English appears to have no plural, is expressed in Latin by tenebræ, in French by ténèbres, which have no singular. It is necessary that every noun should be understood to be of one number or the other; for, in connecting it with a verb, or in supplying its place by a pronoun, we must assume it to be either singular or plural. ”

“ Apart from its value as suggesting thought, or quickening our perception of shades of meaning, and so freshening our feeling of the intimate harmony of sense and spirit in language, and of the thousand ways in which the soul assumes the material world into her own heaven and transfigures it there, the volume will be found practically the most thorough contribution yet made to English etymology. ”

“ The first or personal class consists of formed, individual objects, as: a tool, a tree; for these masculine or feminine pronouns are employed. The neuter [Pg 145] pronoun is used when referring to nouns contained in the second or impersonal class of unformed objects, as: water, dust.
Adjectives
Accidence: Adjectives and Numerals In the dialects the practice of forming adjectives denoting material from the substantive by means of the suffix -en is carried out to a much greater extent than in the literary language, as: tinnen pots, glassen bottles, hornen spoons. ”