• Contronymy

    Alternative forms

    Full definition of contronymy

    Noun

    contronymy

    (uncountable)
    1. The quality of being a contranym or including contranyms.
      • 2008 , BI Karaman, On contronymy, Contronymy, a phenomenon which has received much attention in recent years, has often been described as sense opposition at the micro-level.
      • 2011, Tony Thorne , The 100 Words That Make The English, Today the same word can mean 'wholly', 'to a considerable extent' ('Quite the little madam, aren't we?') or '(only) to some extent', 'partially' or 'somewhat' ('feeling quite tired'), though theoretical linguists explain this slightly differently: 'At the micro-level the lexical unit represents a case for contronymy of antonymy type if it can be subjected to gradation and if it comprises at least two senses which are contradictory within one aspect.'
      • 2013, Hye Seung Lee, Semantics of COM, Kronasser (1952) and Meid (1979) argue that language change results in the occurrence of contronymy in natural language.
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