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

open defiance of authority, especially in the army, navy, or merchant marine. A contumacious act or spirit is contemptuous as well as defiant. Compare OBSTINATE; REVOLUTION. Antonyms: compliant, docile, manageable, subservient, controllable, dutiful, obedient, tractable, deferential, gentle, submissive, yielding. Prepositions:

Rebellious to or against lawful authority.

RECORD. Synonyms: account, enrolment, instrument, register, archive, entry, inventory, roll, catalogue, enumeration, memorandum, schedule, chronicle, history, memorial, scroll. document, inscription, muniment,

A memorial is any object, whether a writing, a monument, or other permanent thing that is designed or adapted to keep something in remembrance. Record is a word of wide signification, applying to any writing, mark, or trace that serves as a memorial giving enduring attestation of an event or fact; an extended account, chronicle, or history is a record; so, too, may be a brief inventory or memorandum; the inscription on a tombstone is a record of the dead; the striæ on a rock-surface are the record of[305] a glacier's passage. A register is a formal or official written record, especially a series of entries made for preservation or reference; as, a register of births and deaths. Archives, in the sense here considered, are documents or records, often legal records, preserved in a public or official depository; the word archives is also applied to the place where such documents are regularly deposited and preserved. Muniments (L. munio, fortify) are records that enable one to defend his title. Compare HISTORY; STORY.

RECOVER. Synonyms: be cured or healed, heal, recuperate, restore, be restored, reanimate, regain, resume, cure, recruit, repossess, retrieve.

The transitive use of recover in the sense of cure, heal, etc., as in 2 Kings v, 6, "That thou mayest recover him of his leprosy," is now practically obsolete. The chief transitive use of recover is in the sense to obtain again after losing, regain, repossess, etc.; as, to recover stolen goods; to recover health. The intransitive sense, be cured, be restored, etc., is very common; as, to recover from sickness, terror, or misfortune.

Antonyms: die, fail, grow worse, relapse, sink. Prepositions:

From; rarely of; (Law) to recover judgment against, to recover damages of or from a person.

REFINEMENT. Synonyms: civilization, cultivation, culture, elegance, politeness.

Civilization applies to nations, denoting the sum of those civil, social, economic, and political attainments by which a community is removed from barbarism; a people may be civilized while still far from refinement or culture, but civilization is susceptible of various degrees and of continued progress. Refinement applies either to nations or individuals, denoting the removal of what is coarse and rude, and a corresponding attainment of what is delicate, elegant, and beautiful. Cultivation, denoting primarily the process of cultivating the soil or growing crops, then the improved condition of either which is the result, is applied in similar sense to the human mind and character, but in this usage is now largely superseded by the term culture, which denotes a high development[306] of the best qualities of man's mental and spiritual nature, with especial reference to the esthetic faculties and to graces of speech and manner, regarded as the expression of a refined nature. Culture in the fullest sense denotes that degree of refinement and development which results from continued cultivation through successive generations; a man's faculties may be brought to a high degree of cultivation in some specialty, while he himself remains uncultured even to the extent of coarseness and rudeness. Compare HUMANE; POLITE.

Antonyms: barbarism, brutality, coarseness, rudeness, savagery, boorishness, clownishness, grossness, rusticity, vulgarity. REFUTE. Synonyms: confound, confute, disprove, overthrow, repel.

To refute and to confute are to answer so as to admit of no reply. To refute a statement is to demonstrate its falsity by argument or countervailing proof; confute is substantially the same in meaning, tho differing in usage. Refute applies either to arguments and opinions or to accusations; confute is not applied to accusations and charges, but to arguments or opinions. Refute is not now applied to persons, but confute is in good use in this application; a person is confuted when his arguments are refuted.

RELIABLE. Synonyms: trustworthy, trusty.

The word reliable has been sharply challenged, but seems to have established its place in the language. The objection to its use on the ground that the suffix -able can not properly be added to an intransitive verb is answered by the citation of such words as "available," "conversable," "laughable," and the like, while, in the matter of usage, reliable has the authority of Coleridge, Martineau, Mill, Irving, Newman, Gladstone, and others of the foremost of recent English writers. The objection to the application of reliable to persons is not sustained by the use of the verb "rely," which is applied to persons in the authorized version of the Scriptures, in the writings of Shakespeare and Bacon, and in the usage of good speakers and writers. Trusty and trustworthy refer to inherent qualities of a high order, trustworthy being especially applied to persons, and denoting moral integrity and truthfulness; we speak[307] of a trusty sword, a trusty servant; we say the man is thoroughly trustworthy. Reliable is inferior in meaning, denoting merely the possession of such qualities as are needed for safe reliance; as, a reliable pledge; reliable information. A man is said to be reliable with reference not only to moral qualities, but to judgment, knowledge, skill, habit, or perhaps pecuniary ability; a thoroughly trustworthy person might not be reliable as a witness on account of unconscious sympathy, or as a security by reason of insufficient means. A reliable messenger is one who may be depended on to do his errand correctly and promptly; a trusty or trustworthy messenger is one who may be admitted to knowledge of the views and purposes of those who employ him, and who will be faithful beyond the mere letter of his commission. We can speak of a railroad-train as reliable when it can be depended on to arrive on time; but to speak of a reliable friend would be cold, and to speak of a warrior girding on his reliable sword would be ludicrous.

RELIGION. Synonyms: devotion, godliness, morality, piety, theology, faith, holiness, pietism, righteousness, worship.

Piety is primarily filial duty, as of children to parents, and hence, in its highest sense, a loving obedience and service to God as the Heavenly Father; pietism often denotes a mystical, sometimes an affected piety; religion is the reverent acknowledgment both in heart and in act of a divine being. Religion, in the fullest and highest sense, includes all the other words of this group. Worship may be external and formal, or it may be the adoring reverence of the human spirit for the divine, seeking outward expression. Devotion, which in its fullest sense is self-consecration, is often used to denote an act of worship, especially prayer or adoration; as, he is engaged in his devotions. Morality is the system and practise of duty as required by the moral law, consisting chiefly in outward acts, and thus may be observed without spiritual rectitude of heart; morality is of necessity included in all true religion, which involves both outward act and spiritual service. Godliness (primarily godlikeness) is a character and spirit like that of God. Holiness is the highest, sinless perfection of any spirit, whether divine or human, tho often used for purity or for consecration. Theology is the science of religion, or the study and scientific statement of all that the human mind can know of[308] God. Faith, strictly the belief and trust which the soul exercises toward God, is often used as a comprehensive word for a whole system of religion considered as the object of faith; as, the Christian faith; the Mohammedan faith.

Antonyms: atheism, godlessness, irreligion, sacrilege, ungodliness, blasphemy, impiety, profanity, unbelief, wickedness. RELUCTANT. Synonyms: averse, disinclined, loath, slow, backward, indisposed, opposed, unwilling.

Reluctant (L. re, back, and lucto, strive, struggle) signifies struggling against what one is urged or impelled to do, or is actually doing; averse (L. a, from, and verto, turn) signifies turned away as with dislike or repugnance; loath (AS. lath, evil, hateful) signifies having a repugnance, disgust, or loathing for, tho the adjective loath is not so strong as the verb loathe. A dunce is always averse to study; a good student is disinclined to it when a fine morning tempts him out; he is indisposed to it in some hour of weariness. A man may be slow or backward in entering upon that to which he is by no means averse. A man is loath to believe evil of his friend, reluctant to speak of it, absolutely unwilling to use it to his injury. A legislator may be opposed to a certain measure, while not averse to what it aims to accomplish. Compare ANTIPATHY.

Antonyms: desirous, disposed, eager, favorable, inclined, willing. REMARK. Synonyms: annotation, comment, note, observation, utterance.

A remark is a saying or brief statement, oral or written, commonly made without much premeditation; a comment is an explanatory or critical remark, as upon some passage in a literary work or some act or speech in common life. A note is something to call attention, hence a brief written statement; in correspondence, a note is briefer than a letter. A note upon some passage in a book is briefer and less elaborate than a comment. Annotations are especially brief notes, commonly marginal, and closely following the text. Comments, observations, or remarks may be oral or written, comments being oftenest written, and remarks oftenest oral. An observation is properly the[309] result of fixed attention and reflection; a remark may be the suggestion of the instant. Remarks are more informal than a speech.

REND. Synonyms: break, cleave, mangle, rive, sever, sunder, burst, lacerate, rip, rupture, slit, tear.

Rend and tear are applied to the separating of textile substances into parts by force violently applied (rend also to frangible substances), tear being the milder, rend the stronger word. Rive is a wood-workers' word for parting wood in the way of the grain without a clean cut. To lacerate is to tear roughly the flesh or animal tissue, as by the teeth of a wild beast; a lacerated wound is distinguished from a wound made by a clean cut or incision. Mangle is a stronger word than lacerate; lacerate is more superficial, mangle more complete. To burst or rupture is to tear or rend by force from within, burst denoting the greater violence; as, to burst a gun; to rupture a blood-vessel; a steam-boiler may be ruptured when its substance is made to divide by internal pressure without explosion. To rip, as usually applied to garments or other articles made by sewing or stitching, is to divide along the line of a seam by cutting or breaking the stitches; the other senses bear some resemblance or analogy to this; as, to rip open a wound. Compare BREAK.

Antonyms: heal, join, mend, reunite, secure, sew, solder, stitch, unite, weld. RENOUNCE. Synonyms: abandon, disavow, disown, recant, repudiate, abjure, discard, forswear, refuse, retract, deny, disclaim, recall, reject, revoke.

Abjure, discard, forswear, recall, recant, renounce, retract, and revoke, like abandon, imply some previous connection. Renounce (L. re, back, and nuntio, bear a message) is to declare against and give up formally and definitively; as, to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world. Recant (L. re, back, and canto, sing) is to take back or deny formally and publicly, as a belief that one has held or professed. Retract (L. re, back, and traho, draw) is to take back something that one has said as not true or as what one is not ready to maintain; as, to retract a charge or accusation; one recants what was especially his own, he retracts what was directed[310] against another. Repudiate (L. re, back, or away, and pudeo, feel shame) is primarily to renounce as shameful, hence to divorce, as a wife; thus in general to put away with emphatic and determined repulsion; as, to repudiate a debt. To deny is to affirm to be not true or not binding; as, to deny a statement or a relationship; or to refuse to grant as something requested; as, his mother could not deny him what he desired. To discard