English Synonyms and Antonyms - James Champlin Fernald (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗

general conclusion held as probable, tho without full certainty; a persuasion is a more confident opinion, involving the heart as well as the intellect. In religion, a doctrine is a statement of belief regarding a single point; a creed is a summary statement of doctrines. Confidence is a firm dependence upon a statement as true, or upon a person as worthy. Reliance is confidence on which we act or are ready to act unquestioningly; we have a calm reliance upon the uniformity of nature. Trust is a practical and tranquil resting of the mind upon the integrity, kindness, friendship, or promises of a person; we have trust in God. Faith is a union of belief and trust. Faith is chiefly personal; belief may be quite impersonal; we speak of belief of a proposition, faith in a promise, because the promise emanates from a person. But belief in a person is often used with no appreciable difference from faith. In religion it is common to distinguish between intellectual belief of religious truth, as any other truth might be believed, and belief of the heart, or saving faith. Antonyms: denial, dissent, doubt, infidelity, rejection, suspicion, disbelief, distrust, incredulity, misgiving, skepticism, unbelief. Prepositions:

Have faith in God; the faith of the gospel.

FAITHFUL. Synonyms: devoted, incorruptible, stanch, true, trusty, firm, loyal, sure, trustworthy, unwavering.

A person is faithful who will keep faith, whether with or without power to aid or serve; a person or thing is trusty that possesses such qualities as to justify the fullest confidence and dependence.[166] We may speak of a faithful but feeble friend; we say a trusty agent, a trusty steed, a trusty sword.

Antonyms: capricious, false, unfaithful, untrustworthy, faithless, fickle, untrue, wavering. Prepositions:

Faithful in service; to duty; to comrade or commander; faithful among the faithless.

FAME. Synonyms: celebrity, eminence, honor, notoriety, reputation, credit, glory, laurels, renown, repute. distinction,

Fame is the widely disseminated report of a person's character, deeds, or abilities, and is oftenest used in the favorable sense. Reputation and repute are more limited than fame, and may be either good or bad. Notoriety is evil repute or a dishonorable counterfeit of fame. Eminence and distinction may result from rank, station, or character. Celebrity is limited in range; we speak of local celebrity, or world-wide fame. Fame in its best sense may be defined as the applause of numbers; renown, as such applause worthily won; we speak of the conqueror's fame, the patriot's renown. Glory and honor are of good import; honor may be given for qualities or acts that should not win it, but it is always given as something good and worthy; we can speak of an evil fame, but not of evil honor; glory has a more exalted and often a sacred sense.

Antonyms: contempt, discredit, dishonor, humiliation, infamy, obscurity, contumely, disgrace, disrepute, ignominy, oblivion, shame. FANATICISM. Synonyms: bigotry, credulity, intolerance, superstition.

Fanaticism is extravagant or even frenzied zeal; bigotry is obstinate and unreasoning attachment to a cause or creed; fanaticism and bigotry usually include intolerance, which is unwillingness to tolerate beliefs or opinions contrary to one's own; superstition is ignorant and irrational religious belief. Credulity is not distinctively religious, but is a general readiness to believe without sufficient evidence, with a proneness to accept the marvellous. Bigotry is narrow, fanaticism is fierce, superstition is ignorant, credulity is weak, intolerance is severe. Bigotry has not the[167] capacity to reason fairly, fanaticism has not the patience, superstition has not the knowledge and mental discipline, intolerance has not the disposition. Bigotry, fanaticism, and superstition are perversions of the religious sentiment; credulity and intolerance often accompany skepticism or atheism.

Antonyms: cynicism, free-thinking, indifference, latitudinarianism. FANCIFUL. Synonyms: chimerical, fantastic, grotesque, imaginative, visionary.

That is fanciful which is dictated or suggested by fancy independently of more serious considerations; the fantastic is the fanciful with the added elements of whimsicalness and extravagance. The fanciful swings away from the real or the ordinary lightly and pleasantly, the fantastic extravagantly, the grotesque ridiculously. A fanciful arrangement of objects is commonly pleasing, a fantastic arrangement is striking, a grotesque arrangement is laughable. A fanciful theory or suggestion may be clearly recognized as such; a visionary scheme is erroneously supposed to have a basis in fact. Compare synonyms for DREAM; IDEA; IMAGINATION.

Antonyms: accurate, commonplace, prosaic, regular, sound, calculable, literal, real, sensible, sure, calculated, ordinary, reasonable, solid, true. FANCY. Synonyms: belief, desire, imagination, predilection, caprice, humor, inclination, supposition, conceit, idea, liking, vagary, conception, image, mood, whim.

An intellectual fancy is a mental image or picture founded upon slight or whimsical association or resemblance; a conceit has less of the picturesque and more of the theoretic than a fancy; a conceit is somewhat aside from the common laws of reasoning, as a fancy is lighter and more airy than the common mode of thought. A conceit or fancy may be wholly unfounded, while a conception always has, or is believed to have, some answering reality. (Compare REASON.) An intellectual fancy or conceit may be pleasing or amusing, but is never worth serious discussion; we speak of a mere fancy, a droll or odd conceit. An emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and[168] no exercise of judgment, and liable to fade as lightly as it was formed. In a broader sense, the fancy signifies the faculty by which fancies or mental images are formed, associated, or combined. Compare synonyms for DREAM; IDEA; IMAGINATION.

Antonyms: actuality, certainty, fact, reality, truth, verity. Prepositions:

To have a fancy for or take a fancy to a person or thing.

FAREWELL. Synonyms: adieu, good-by, parting salutation, valedictory. congé, leave-taking, valediction,

Good-by is the homely and hearty, farewell the formal English word at parting. Adieu, from the French, is still more ceremonious than farewell; congé, also from the French, is commonly contemptuous or supercilious, and equivalent to dismissal. Valediction is a learned word never in popular use. A valedictory is a public farewell to a company or assembly.

Prepositions:

I bade farewell to my comrades, or (without preposition) I bade my comrades farewell; I took a sad farewell of my friends.

FEAR. Synonyms: affright, dismay, horror, timidity, apprehension, disquietude, misgiving, trembling, awe, dread, panic, tremor, consternation, fright, terror, trepidation.

Fear is the generic term denoting an emotion excited by threatening evil with a desire to avoid or escape it; fear may be sudden or lingering, in view of present, of imminent, or of distant and only possible danger; in the latter sense dread is oftener used. Horror (etymologically a shivering or shuddering) denotes a shuddering fear accompanied with abhorrence or such a shock to the feelings and sensibilities as may exist without fear, as when one suddenly encounters some ghastly spectacle; we say of a desperate but fettered criminal, "I looked upon him with horror." Where horror includes fear, it is fear mingled with abhorrence. (See ABHOR.) Affright, fright, and terror are always sudden, and in actual presence of that which is terrible. Fear may overwhelm, or may nerve one to desperate defense; fright and terror render one incapable of defense; fear may be controlled by force of[169] will; fright and terror overwhelm the will; terror paralyzes, fright may cause one to fly, to scream, or to swoon. Fright is largely a matter of the nerves; fear of the intellect and the imagination; terror of all the faculties, bodily and mental. Panic is a sudden fear or fright, affecting numbers at once; vast armies or crowded audiences are liable to panic upon slight occasion. In a like sense we speak of a financial panic. Dismay is a helpless sinking of heart in view of some overwhelming peril or sorrow. Dismay is more reflective, enduring, and despairing than fright; a horse is subject to fright or terror, but not to dismay. Awe is a reverential fear. Compare ALARM.

Antonyms:

See synonyms for FORTITUDE.

FEMININE. Synonyms: effeminate, female, womanish, womanly.

We apply female to the sex, feminine to the qualities, especially the finer physical or mental qualities that distinguish the female sex in the human family, or to the objects appropriate for or especially employed by them. A female voice is the voice of a woman; a feminine voice may belong to a man. Womanish denotes the undesirable, womanly the admirable or lovely qualities of woman. Womanly tears would suggest respect and sympathy, womanish tears a touch of contempt. The word effeminate is always used reproachfully, and only of men as possessing womanly traits such as are inconsistent with true manliness.

Antonyms:

See synonyms for MASCULINE.

FETTER. Synonyms: bondage, custody, gyves, irons, bonds, durance, handcuffs, manacles, chains, duress, imprisonment, shackles.

Bonds may be of cord, leather, or any other substance that can bind; chains are of linked metal. Manacles and handcuffs are for the hands, fetters are primarily chains or jointed iron fastenings for the feet; gyves may be for either. A shackle is a metallic ring, clasp, or bracelet-like fastening for encircling and restraining a limb: commonly one of a pair, used either for hands or feet. Bonds, fetters, and chains are used in a general way for almost[170] any form of restraint. Gyves is now wholly poetic, and the other words are mostly restricted to the literary style; handcuffs is the specific and irons the general term in popular usage; as, the prisoner was put in irons. Bonds, chains, and shackles are frequently used in the metaphorical sense.

FEUD. Synonyms: affray, brawl, contest, dissension, hostility, animosity, broil, controversy, enmity, quarrel, bitterness, contention, dispute, fray, strife.

A feud is enmity between families, clans, or parties, with acts of hostility mutually retaliated and avenged; feud is rarely used of individuals, never of nations. While all the other words of the group may refer to that which is transient, a feud is long-enduring, and often hereditary. Dissension is used of a number of persons, of a party or other organization. Bitterness is in feeling only; enmity and hostility involve will and purpose to oppose or injure. A quarrel is in word or act, or both, and is commonly slight and transient, as we speak of childish quarrels; contention and strife may be in word or deed; contest ordinarily involves some form of action. Contest is often used in a good sense, contention and strife very rarely so. Controversy is commonly in words; strife extends from verbal controversy to the contests of armies. Affray, brawl, and broil, like quarrel, are words of inferior dignity. An affray or broil may arise at a street corner; the affray always involves physical force; the brawl or broil may be confined to violent language.

FICTION. Synonyms: allegory, fabrication, invention, myth, romance, apologue, falsehood, legend, novel, story. fable, figment,

Fiction is now chiefly used of a prose work in narrative form in which the characters are partly or wholly imaginary, and which is designed to portray human life, with or without a practical lesson; a romance portrays what is picturesque or striking, as a mere fiction may not do; novel is a general name for any continuous fictitious narrative, especially a love-story; fiction and novel are used with little difference of meaning, except that novel characterizes a work in which the emotional element is especially[171] prominent. The moral of the fable is expressed formally; the lesson of the fiction, if any, is inwrought. A fiction is studied; a myth grows up without intent. A legend may be true, but can not be historically verified; a myth has been received as true at some time, but is now known to be false. A fabrication is designed to deceive; it is a less odious word than falsehood, but is really stronger, as a falsehood may be a sudden unpremeditated statement, while a fabrication is a series of statements carefully studied and fitted together in order to deceive; the falsehood is all false; the fabrication may mingle the true with the false. A figment is something imaginary which the one who utters it may or may not believe to be true; we say, "That statement is a figment of his imagination." The story may be either true or false, and covers the various senses of all the words in the group. Apologue, a word simply transferred from Greek into English, is the same