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

and always refers to that which at some point falls short of a standard of excellence. Advance, better, and improve may refer either to what is quite imperfect or to what has reached a high degree of excellence; we advance the kingdom of God, improve the minds of our children, better the morals of the people. But for matters below the point of ordinary approval we seldom use these words; we do not speak of bettering a wretched alley, or improving a foul sewer. There we use cleanse, purify, or similar words. We correct evils, reform abuses, rectify incidental conditions of evil or error; we ameliorate poverty and misery, which we can not wholly remove. We mend a tool, repair a building, correct proof; we amend character or conduct that is faulty, or a statement or law that is defective. A text, writing, or statement is amended by the author or by some adequate authority; it is often emended by conjecture. A motion is amended by the mover or by the assembly; a constitution is amended by the people; an ancient text is emended by a critic who believes that what seems to him the better reading is what the author wrote. Compare ALLEVIATE. Antonyms: aggravate, debase, harm, mar, tarnish, blemish, depress, impair, spoil, vitiate. corrupt, deteriorate, injure,

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AMIABLE. Synonyms: agreeable, engaging, lovable, pleasing, attractive, gentle, lovely, sweet, benignant, good-natured, loving, winning, harming, kind, pleasant, winsome.

Amiable combines the senses of lovable or lovely and loving; the amiable character has ready affection and kindliness for others, with the qualities that are adapted to win their love; amiable is a higher and stronger word than good-natured or agreeable. Lovely is often applied to externals; as, a lovely face. Amiable denotes a disposition desirous to cheer, please, and make happy. A selfish man of the world may have the art to be agreeable; a handsome, brilliant, and witty person may be charming or even attractive, while by no means amiable. The engaging, winning, and winsome add to amiability something of beauty, accomplishments, and grace. The benignant are calmly kind, as from a height and a distance. Kind, good-natured people may be coarse and rude, and so fail to be agreeable or pleasing; the really amiable are likely to avoid such faults by their earnest desire to please. The good-natured have an easy disposition to get along comfortably with every one in all circumstances. A sweet disposition is very sure to be amiable, the loving heart bringing out all that is lovable and lovely in character.

Antonyms: acrimonious, crusty, hateful, ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, cruel, gruff, ill-natured, sullen, AMID. Synonyms: amidst, amongst, betwixt, mingled with, among, between, in the midst of, surrounded by.

Amid or amidst denotes surrounded by; among or amongst denotes mingled with. Between (archaic or poetic, betwixt) is said of two persons or objects, or of two groups of persons or objects. "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen," Gen. xiii, 9; the reference being to two bodies of herdmen. Amid denotes mere position; among, some active relation, as of companionship, hostility, etc. Lowell's "Among my Books" regards the books as companions; amid my books would suggest packing, storing, or some other incidental circumstance. We say among friends, or among enemies, amidst the woods, amid the shadows. In the[43] midst of may have merely the local meaning; as, I found myself in the midst of a crowd; or it may express even closer association than among; as, "I found myself in the midst of friends" suggests their pressing up on every side, oneself the central object; so, "where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt. xviii, 20; in which case it would be feebler to say "among them," impossible to say "amid them," not so well to say "amidst them."

Antonyms: afar from, away from, beyond, far from, outside, without. AMPLIFY. Synonyms: augment, dilate, expand, extend, unfold, develop, enlarge, expatiate, increase, widen.

Amplify is now rarely used in the sense of increase, to add material substance, bulk, volume, or the like; it is now almost wholly applied to discourse or writing, signifying to make fuller in statement, whether with or without adding matter of importance, as by stating fully what was before only implied, or by adding illustrations to make the meaning more readily apprehended, etc. The chief difficulty of very young writers is to amplify, to get beyond the bare curt statement by developing, expanding, unfolding the thought. The chief difficulty of those who have more material and experience is to condense sufficiently. So, in the early days of our literature amplify was used in the favorable sense; but at present this word and most kindred words are coming to share the derogatory meaning that has long attached to expatiate. We may develop a thought, expand an illustration, extend a discussion, expatiate on a hobby, dilate on something joyous or sad, enlarge a volume, unfold a scheme, widen the range of treatment.

Antonyms: abbreviate, amputate, condense, cut down, reduce, summarize, abridge, "boil down," curtail, epitomize, retrench, sum up. Prepositions:

To amplify on or upon the subject is needless. Amplify this matter by illustrations.

ANALOGY. Synonyms: affinity, likeness, relation, similarity, coincidence, parity, resemblance, simile, comparison, proportion, semblance, similitude.

Analogy is specifically a resemblance of relations; a resemblance[44] that may be reasoned from, so that from the likeness in certain respects we may infer that other and perhaps deeper relations exist. Affinity is a mutual attraction with or without seeming likeness; as, the affinity of iron for oxygen. Coincidence is complete agreement in some one or more respects; there may be a coincidence in time of most dissimilar events. Parity of reasoning is said of an argument equally conclusive on subjects not strictly analogous. Similitude is a rhetorical comparison of one thing to another with which it has some points in common. Resemblance and similarity are external or superficial, and may involve no deeper relation; as, the resemblance of a cloud to a distant mountain. Compare ALLEGORY.

Antonyms: disagreement, disproportion, dissimilarity, incongruity, unlikeness. Prepositions:

The analogy between (or of) nature and revelation; the analogy of sound to light; a family has some analogy with (or to) a state.

ANGER. Synonyms: animosity, fury, offense, rage, choler, impatience, passion, resentment, displeasure, indignation, peevishness, temper, exasperation, ire, pettishness, vexation, fretfulness, irritation, petulance, wrath.

Displeasure is the mildest and most general word. Choler and ire, now rare except in poetic or highly rhetorical language, denote a still, and the latter a persistent, anger. Temper used alone in the sense of anger is colloquial, tho we may correctly say a hot temper, a fiery temper, etc. Passion, tho a word of far wider application, may, in the singular, be employed to denote anger; "did put me in a towering passion," Shakespeare Hamlet act v, sc. 2. Anger is violent and vindictive emotion, which is sharp, sudden, and, like all violent passions, necessarily brief. Resentment (a feeling back or feeling over again) is persistent, the bitter brooding over injuries. Exasperation, a roughening, is a hot, superficial intensity of anger, demanding instant expression. Rage drives one beyond the bounds of prudence or discretion; fury is stronger yet, and sweeps one away into uncontrollable violence. Anger is personal and usually selfish, aroused by real or supposed wrong to oneself, and directed specifically and intensely against the person who is viewed as blameworthy. Indignation is impersonal and unselfish displeasure at unworthy acts (L. indigna), i. e.,[45] at wrong as wrong. Pure indignation is not followed by regret, and needs no repentance; it is also more self-controlled than anger. Anger is commonly a sin; indignation is often a duty. Wrath is deep and perhaps vengeful displeasure, as when the people of Nazareth were "filled with wrath" at the plain words of Jesus (Luke iv, 28); it may, however, simply express the culmination of righteous indignation without malice in a pure being; as, the wrath of God. Impatience, fretfulness, irritation, peevishness, pettishness, petulance, and vexation express the slighter forms of anger. Irritation, petulance, and vexation are temporary and for immediate cause. Fretfulness, pettishness, and peevishness are chronic states finding in any petty matter an occasion for their exercise. Compare ACRIMONY; ENMITY; HATRED.

Antonyms: amiability, gentleness, long-suffering, patience, peacefulness, charity, leniency, love, peace, self-control, forbearance, lenity, mildness, peaceableness, self-restraint. Prepositions:

Anger at the insult prompted the reply. Anger toward the offender exaggerates the offense.

ANIMAL. Synonyms: beast, fauna, living organism, sentient being. brute, living creature,

An animal is a sentient being, distinct from inanimate matter and from vegetable life on the one side and from mental and spiritual existence on the other. Thus man is properly classified as an animal. But because the animal life is the lowest and rudest part of his being and that which he shares with inferior creatures, to call any individual man an animal is to imply that the animal nature has undue supremacy, and so is deep condemnation or utter insult. The brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a beast is to indicate that he is vilely sensual. We speak of the cruel father as a brute to his children; of the drunkard as making a beast of himself. So firmly are these figurative senses established that we now incline to avoid applying brute or beast to any creature, as a horse or dog, for which we have any affection; we prefer in such cases the word animal. Creature is a word of wide signification, including all the things that God[46] has created, whether inanimate objects, plants, animals, angels, or men. The animals of a region are collectively called its fauna.

Antonyms: angel, man, mind, soul, substance (material), inanimate object, matter, mineral, spirit, vegetable. ANNOUNCE. Synonyms: advertise, give notice (of), proclaim, reveal, circulate, give out, promulgate, say, communicate, herald, propound, spread abroad, declare, make known, publish, state, enunciate, notify, report, tell.

To announce is to give intelligence of in some formal or public way. We may announce that which has occurred or that which is to occur, tho the word is chiefly used in the anticipative sense; we announce a book when it is in press, a guest when he arrives. We advertise our business, communicate our intentions, enunciate our views; we notify an individual, give notice to the public. Declare has often an authoritative force; to declare war is to cause war to be, where before there may have been only hostilities; we say declare war, proclaim peace. We propound a question or an argument, promulgate the views of a sect or party, or the decision of a court, etc. We report an interview, reveal a secret, herald the coming of some distinguished person or great event. Publish, in popular usage, is becoming closely restricted to the sense of issuing through the press; we announce a book that is to be published.

Antonyms: bury, cover (up), hush, keep secret, suppress, conceal, hide, keep back, secrete, withhold. Prepositions:

The event was announced to the family by telegraph.

ANSWER. Synonyms: rejoinder, repartee, reply, response, retort.

A verbal answer is a return of words to something that seems to call for them, and is made to a charge as well as to a question; an answer may be even made to an unspoken implication or manifestation; see Luke v, 22. In a wider sense, anything said or done in return for some word, action, or suggestion of another may be called an answer. The blow of an enraged man, the whinny of a horse, the howling of the wind, the movement of a bolt in a lock, an echo, etc., may each be an answer to some word[47] or movement. A reply is an unfolding, and ordinarily implies thought and intelligence. A rejoinder is strictly an answer to a reply, tho often used in the general sense of answer, but always with the implication of something more or less controversial or opposed, tho lacking the conclusiveness implied in answer; an answer, in the full sense, to a charge, an argument, or an objection is adequate, and finally refutes and disposes of it; a reply or rejoinder may be quite inadequate, so