Homonyms

or First Grade Can Only Carry You So Far

Me in 1st grade

I learned a lot of things in first grade, among them--counting with Roman Numerals, reading, and what a homonym was.  I learned from Miss Stemple, my teacher, that homonyms were words that sounded the same but were spelled differently, such as bear and bare.  Made sense and I remembered and used that definition for many years. Actually it's still the basic definition I use. That was until recently.

Ward and I were discussing an article he was reading about words that are spelled the same and sound the same, but have opposite meanings, such as dust which can mean either putting a fine powder on something or taking it off.  My curiosity was peaked with the discussion because I had never thought about these words (lets call them opps which much easier to type) as a category although I certainly knew about them. That's when I consulted Professor Google for more insight on the matter. I realized that was about as reliable as consulting Dr. Google for my medical problems, but on I forged.

First hit identified these same words with opposite meanings as homonyms. This was not quite my working definition of homonyms so I explored further. Then I learned that homonyms were a broad category with three different kinds.

Homophones: Words that are spelled differently but sound the same such as bare and bear This is what I learned is first grade
Homographs: Words that are spelled the same and sound the same, but have different meanings. Such as light and light. One for a light from a lamp and the other for something that is not heavy.
Heterographs: Words that are spelled the same but are said differently. Such as bow and bow where one is bending at the waist and the other is the result of tying something.

Homographs seemed to fit for opps, but it didn't say anything about opposite meanings.  Not being satisfied, I went a little deeper into the internet hole and found the term contronyms. Contronyms are a special case of homographs where the words are spelled the same and sound the same and have different meanings which are opposite of each other such as the above example of dust. Bingo! However, to confuse the matter more, contronyms can also be called contranyms, auto-antonyms, and Janus words.

After a mere hour of Googling around the internet I had learned that one subset of homonyms are contronyms which are words that spelled and pronounced the same but have opposite meaning.

What am I going to do with this information? Probably forget it. But I had some nice trips down memory lane while looking for it.

Disclaimer: I consulted many sites for writing this post which didn't all agree on these terms. I chose what made sense to me. Which means, kids, don't use this as a source for homework. I don't know anymore than what I learned in first grade.

But Wait, There's More:

A few examples of contronyms from DailyWritingTips.com

--Bolt: To secure, or to flee 

--Cleave: To adhere, or to separate 

--Fine: Excellent, or acceptable or good enough 

--Handicap: An advantage provided to ensure equality, or a disadvantage that prevents equal achievement 

--Hold up: To support, or to impede 

--Left: Remained, or departed 

--Put out: Extinguish, or generate 

--Rent: To purchase use of something, or to sell use