Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Contranym
A contranym (also spelled contronym) is a word that can have two opposite or highly contrasting meanings. It is a relatively new word formed in the 1960s from the prefix “contra,“ against, and “nym,” the Greek for name, as in pseudonym, synonym or anonymous. An example of a contranym is the word “oversight.” It can mean both something accidentally omitted or something under close supervision. The meaning depends on context and it’s one of the oddities that makes English a challenging language for non-native speakers. Contranyms are also called “Janus words” after the Roman God with two faces who had the ability to look both ways.
Consider how the meaning of these contranyms are dependent on the use: The horse bolted because the door was not bolted. If the rope had not bound the dog to the tree, the dog would have been homeward bound. The wall buckled because the metal support straps couldn’t be buckled. Clipping the bottom off the papers will make them easier to clip together. The visitor left so quickly he left his gloves. The attorney who overlooked the contract overlooked a typo. The tree should be trimmed to shape so it can be trimmed with lights. She was stroking the cat at the stroke of midnight. “Stroke” can be a light caress when it’s petting a kitty or making a pencil sketch or a sudden blow when it’s a golf stroke or the medical emergency, a shortened version from the Middle Age’s “The Stroke of God’s Hand.”
