English Synonyms and Antonyms by James Champlin Fernald (best ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📕

that one may say, "This reply is not an answer;" "I am ready with an answer" means far more than "I am ready with a reply." A response is accordant or harmonious, designed or adapted to carry on the thought of the words that called it forth, as the responses in a liturgical service, or to meet the wish of him who seeks it; as, the appeal for aid met a prompt and hearty response. Repartee is a prompt, witty, and commonly good-natured answer to some argument or attack; a retort may also be witty, but is severe and may be even savage in its intensity. Prepositions:

An answer in writing, or by word of mouth, to the question.

ANTICIPATE. Synonyms: apprehend, forecast, hope, expect, foretaste, look forward to.

To anticipate may be either to take before in fact or to take before in thought; in the former sense it is allied with prevent; in the latter, with the synonyms above given. This is coming to be the prevalent and favorite use. We expect that which we have good reason to believe will happen; as, a boy expects to grow to manhood. We hope for that which we much desire and somewhat expect. We apprehend what we both expect and fear. Anticipate is commonly used now, like foretaste, of that which we expect both with confidence and pleasure. In this use it is a stronger word than hope, where often "the wish is father to the thought." I hope for a visit from my friend, tho I have no word from him; I expect it when he writes that he is coming; and as the time draws near I anticipate it with pleasure. Compare ABIDE; PREVENT.

Antonyms: despair of, distrust, doubt, dread, fear, recall, recollect, remember.

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ANTICIPATION. Synonyms: antepast, expectation, foresight, hope, apprehension, foreboding, foretaste, presentiment, expectancy, forecast, forethought, prevision.

Expectation may be either of good or evil; presentiment almost always, apprehension and foreboding always, of evil; anticipation and antepast, commonly of good. Thus, we speak of the pleasures of anticipation. A foretaste may be of good or evil, and is more than imaginary; it is a part actually received in advance. Foresight and forethought prevent future evil and secure future good by timely looking forward, and acting upon what is foreseen. Compare ANTICIPATE.

Antonyms: astonishment, despair, dread, fear, surprise, consummation, doubt, enjoyment, realization, wonder. ANTIPATHY. Synonyms: abhorrence, disgust, hatred, repugnance, antagonism, dislike, hostility, repulsion, aversion, distaste, opposition, uncongeniality. detestation,

Antipathy, repugnance, and uncongeniality are instinctive; other forms of dislike may be acquired or cherished for cause. Uncongeniality is negative, a want of touch or sympathy. An antipathy to a person or thing is an instinctive recoil from connection or association with that person or thing, and may be physical or mental, or both. Antagonism may result from the necessity of circumstances; opposition may spring from conflicting views or interests; abhorrence and detestation may be the result of religious and moral training; distaste and disgust may be acquired; aversion is a deep and permanent dislike. A natural antipathy may give rise to opposition which may result in hatred and hostility. Compare ACRIMONY; ANGER; ENMITY; HATRED.

Antonyms: affinity, attraction, fellow-feeling, kindliness, sympathy. agreement, congeniality, harmony, regard, Prepositions:

Antipathy to (less frequently for or against) a person or thing; antipathy between or betwixt two persons or things.

ANTIQUE. Synonyms: ancient, old-fashioned, quaint, superannuated. antiquated,

Antique refers to an ancient, antiquated to a discarded style.[49] Antique is that which is either ancient in fact or ancient in style. The reference is to the style rather than to the age. We can speak of the antique architecture of a church just built. The difference between antiquated and antique is not in the age, for a Puritan style may be scorned as antiquated, while a Roman or Renaissance style may be prized as antique. The antiquated is not so much out of date as out of vogue. Old-fashioned may be used approvingly or contemptuously. In the latter case it becomes a synonym for antiquated; in the good sense it approaches the meaning of antique, but indicates less duration. We call a wide New England fireplace old-fashioned; a coin of the Cæsars, antique. Quaint combines the idea of age with a pleasing oddity; as, a quaint gambrel-roofed house. Antiquated is sometimes used of persons in a sense akin to superannuated. The antiquated person is out of style and out of sympathy with the present generation by reason of age; the superannuated person is incapacitated for present activities by reason of age. Compare OLD.

Antonyms: fashionable, fresh, modern, modish, new, recent, stylish. ANXIETY. Synonyms: anguish, disquiet, foreboding, perplexity, apprehension, disturbance, fretfulness, solicitude, care, dread, fretting, trouble, concern, fear, misgiving, worry.

Anxiety is, according to its derivation, a choking disquiet, akin to anguish; anxiety is mental; anguish may be mental or physical; anguish is in regard to the known, anxiety in regard to the unknown; anguish is because of what has happened, anxiety because of what may happen. Anxiety refers to some future event, always suggesting hopeful possibility, and thus differing from apprehension, fear, dread, foreboding, terror, all of which may be quite despairing. In matters within our reach, anxiety always stirs the question whether something can not be done, and is thus a valuable spur to doing; in this respect it is allied to care. Foreboding, dread, etc., commonly incapacitate for all helpful thought or endeavor. Worry is a more petty, restless, and manifest anxiety; anxiety may be quiet and silent; worry is communicated to all around. Solicitude is a milder anxiety. Fretting or fretfulness is a weak complaining without thought of accomplishing or changing anything, but merely as a relief to one's own disquiet. Perplexity often involves anxiety, but may be quite free from it.[50] A student may be perplexed regarding a translation, yet, if he has time enough, not at all anxious regarding it.

Antonyms: apathy, calmness, confidence, light-heartedness, satisfaction, assurance, carelessness, ease, nonchalance, tranquillity. Prepositions:

Anxiety for a friend's return; anxiety about, in regard to, or concerning the future.

APATHY. Synonyms: calmness, indifference, quietness, stoicism, composure, insensibility, quietude, tranquillity, immobility, lethargy, sluggishness, unconcern, impassibility, phlegm, stillness, unfeelingness.

Apathy, according to its Greek derivation, is a simple absence of feeling or emotion. There are persons to whom a certain degree of apathy is natural, an innate sluggishness of the emotional nature. In the apathy of despair, a person gives up, without resistance or sensibility, to what he has fiercely struggled to avoid. While apathy is want of feeling, calmness is feeling without agitation. Calmness is the result of strength, courage, or trust; apathy is the result of dulness or weakness. Composure is freedom from agitation or disturbance, resulting ordinarily from force of will, or from perfect confidence in one's own resources. Impassibility is a philosophical term applied to the Deity, as infinitely exalted above all stir of passion or emotion. Unfeelingness, the Saxon word that should be the exact equivalent of apathy, really means more, a lack of the feeling one ought to have, a censurable hardness of heart. Indifference and insensibility designate the absence of feeling toward certain persons or things; apathy, entire absence of feeling. Indifference is a want of interest; insensibility is a want of feeling; unconcern has reference to consequences. We speak of insensibility of heart, immobility of countenance. Stoicism is an intentional suppression of feeling and deadening of sensibilities, while apathy is involuntary. Compare CALM; REST; STUPOR.

Antonyms: agitation, disturbance, feeling, sensibility, sympathy, alarm, eagerness, frenzy, sensitiveness, turbulence, anxiety, emotion, fury, storm, vehemence, care, excitement, passion, susceptibility, violence. distress, Prepositions:

The apathy of monastic life; apathy toward good.

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APIECE. Synonyms: distributively, each, individually, separately, severally.

There is no discernible difference in sense between so much apiece and so much each; the former is the more common and popular, the latter the more elegant expression. Distributively is generally used of numbers and abstract relations. Individually emphasizes the independence of the individuals; separately and severally still more emphatically hold them apart. The signers of a note may become jointly and severally responsible, that is, each liable for the entire amount, as if he had signed it alone. Witnesses are often brought separately into court, in order that no one may be influenced by the testimony of another. If a company of laborers demand a dollar apiece, that is a demand that each shall receive that sum; if they individually demand a dollar, each individual makes the demand.

Antonyms: accumulatively, confusedly, indiscriminately, together, unitedly. collectively, en masse, synthetically, APOLOGY. Synonyms: acknowledgment, defense, excuse, plea, confession, exculpation, justification, vindication.

All these words express one's answer to a charge of wrong or error that is or might be made. Apology has undergone a remarkable change from its old sense of a valiant defense—as in Justin Martyr's Apologies for the Christian faith—to its present meaning of humble confession and concession. He who offers an apology admits himself, at least technically and seemingly, in the wrong. An apology is for what one has done or left undone; an excuse may be for what one proposes to do or leave undone as well; as, one sends beforehand his excuse for not accepting an invitation; if he should fail either to be present or to excuse himself, an apology would be in order. An excuse for a fault is an attempt at partial justification; as, one alleges haste as an excuse for carelessness. Confession is a full acknowledgment of wrong, generally of a grave wrong, with or without apology or excuse. Plea ranges in sense from a prayer for favor or pardon to an attempt at full vindication. Defense, exculpation, justification, and vindication are more properly antonyms than synonyms of apology in its modern sense, and should be so given, but for[52] their connection with its historic usage. Compare CONFESS; DEFENSE.

Antonyms: accusation, charge, condemnation, injury, offense, censure, complaint, imputation, insult, wrong. Prepositions:

An apology to the guest for the oversight would be fitting.

APPARENT. Synonyms: likely, presumable, probable, seeming.

The apparent is that which appears; the word has two contrasted senses, either of that which is manifest, visible, certain, or of that which merely seems to be and may be very different from what is; as, the apparent motion of the sun around the earth. Apparent kindness casts a doubt on the reality of the kindness; apparent neglect implies that more care and pains may have been bestowed than we are aware of. Presumable implies that a thing may be reasonably supposed beforehand without any full knowledge of the facts. Probable implies that we know facts enough to make us moderately confident of it. Seeming expresses great doubt of the reality; seeming innocence comes very near in meaning to probable guilt. Apparent indicates less assurance than probable, and more than seeming. A man's probable intent we believe will prove to be his real intent; his seeming intent we believe to be a sham; his apparent intent may be the true one, tho we have not yet evidence on which to pronounce with certainty or even with confidence. Likely is a word with a wide range of usage, but always implying the belief that the thing is, or will be, true; it is often used with the infinitive, as the other words of this list can not be; as, it is likely to happen. Compare EVIDENT.

Antonyms: doubtful, dubious, improbable, unimaginable, unlikely. Prepositions:

(When apparent is used in the sense of evident): His guilt is apparent in every act to all observers.

APPEAR. Synonyms: have the appearance or semblance, look, seem.

Appear and look refer to what manifests itself to the senses; to a semblance or probability presented directly to the mind. Seem[53] applies to what is manifest to the mind on reflection. It suddenly appears to me that there is smoke in the distance; as I watch, it looks like a fire; from my knowledge of the locality and observation of particulars, it seems to me a farmhouse must be burning.

Antonyms: be, be certain, real, or true, be the fact, exist. Prepositions:

Appear at the front; among the first; on