Words That Are Their Own Opposites

Words That Are Their Own Opposites

And now, Words and Their Stories, a VOA Learning English program about American expressions.

When you are learning a language, context¹ is everything. Here, “context” means the words around another word or phrase that help explain what the sentence is saying. And context is even more important for a certain group of words – words that are their own opposites.

A word with opposing meanings is called a contronym or contranym, spelled with an “a.”

These words also go by the more romantic term “Janus words.” Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He is often shown with two faces looking in opposite directions.

So, what are these Janus words? Some are very common, like the word “off.”

If you turn off a device or light, you deactivate² it. But if you say a device went off, you mean it was activated³. Here’s an example using a car alarm.

Imagine. It’s late at night. Your neighbor’s car alarm starts making a loud noise. The noise wakes you up. So, you go to your neighbor’s apartment to tell him.

“Hey! Hey, wake up! Your car alarm is going off. Turn it off before it wakes up the whole neighborhood!”

The word “left” is another example of a contronym. “Left” can mean either to depart from a place or to remain in a place. For example, the women left the dinner party to sit outside. The guys were left in the kitchen to clean up. Here, the women departed the party, leaving the men to remain in the kitchen.

I really like that example.

Here are some examples of contronyms from the world of farming.

If you seed a tomato or cucumber, you remove the seeds. But if you seed a field, you put seeds in a field to grow.

Dust is another word that requires some context for understanding. Dust as a noun means fine particles of something, such as dirt or ash. Dust as a verb can mean either to add or to remove those fine particles.

So, if you are cleaning a house, you can dust furniture by removing dirt. Or, if you are farming, you can dust crops by adding anti-insect dust, usually by airplane.

Context is everything. Another common word is fast.

Fast can mean something is moving quickly: she is running fast. But “fast” can also mean something is fixed⁴ and unmoving. For instance, if colors are fast they will not run when you get them wet.

Here’s another example: “Hold fast to your beliefs. Don’t change them simply because they are unpopular at the moment.”

Another contronym is the word “screen.” Screen can mean both to show and to hide. You invite many families to your house for the screening of your new film. You can’t wait for them to see it. But when the film shows a violent image, you hold your hands over the children’s eyes and screen their view.

Also, if you are screening candidates for a job, you are choosing not to see some of them. We also say we are screening phone calls if we are choosing to answer some but not others. Yet many of us look at a computer screen every day to see pictures, get information and of course check VOA Learning English.

And that’s all for this Words and Their Stories. Really. I mean it. There’s no contronym in that sentence.

1 context   

n.背景，环境，上下文，语境

参考例句：

• You can always tell the meaning of a word from its context.你常可以从上下文中猜出词义来。
• This sentence does not seem to connect with the context.这个句子似乎与上下文脱节。

2 deactivate   

v.使无效；复员

参考例句：

• Russia is deactivating some of its deadliest missiles.俄罗斯正在拆除其一些最危险的导弹。
• I go through several complex steps to try to "deactivate" my profile.我尝试了那些复杂的步骤，试图“撤销”我的个人资料。

3 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

4 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。