Betcha Never Knew These Opposite Words!
Half of the words in this blog will probably be familiar to you. But what about their opposites? Are they so familiar?
Well, I’m going to show you these peculiar and obscure antonyms, because some of them are extremely cool — and need a swift renaissance.
Will these words surprise and enlighten you? Yes.
Will they impress you friends? Possibly.
Will they benefit your life in a practical way? Absolutely not. Enjoy!
1. The opposite of Nocturnal is:
‘Diurnal’
(from the Latin word Diurnus meaning ‘daily’)
Example:
‘Much like humans, many animals including dogs, elephants and even honeybees are diurnal, as they are active in the day, and sleep at night.’
2. The opposite of Misogyny is:
‘Misandry’
(from the Greek miso meaning ‘hatred,’ and ‘andr’ meaning ‘man’)
Example:
‘Emerging from the divorce settlement with practically nothing, while his ex-wife kept most of their assets, he fumed at what he believed was the judge’s blatant misandry.’
Note: It should be pointed out here that the overwhelming majority of people do not consider misandry to be the ‘real-world’ opposite of misogyny, as it’s very clear that men have not endured anywhere near the same level of structural and institutional prejudice that women have throughout history — so, I would use this word very sparingly.
3. The opposite of Exaggerate is:
‘Litotes’
(from the Greek word litos, meaning ‘plain’ and ‘meagre’)
Now, you can argue that the opposite of exaggerate could be a number of words such as ‘minimise’ or ‘understate,’ but this is such a cool and simple technique, it’s worth highlighting.
Litotes has a very grand definition:
“Avoiding using a positive affirmation by instead negating a negative statement.’ Want an example?
“Not bad.”
It’s that simple. When you’re asked to review a friend’s blog and you say it’s ‘not without interesting points,’ or if you’re describing a friend’s underwhelming cooking using the phrase ‘it was no mean feat to cook that in just an hour,’ you are using litotes — and both of the previous statements are great examples of how you can create a ‘false positive’ by reducing a negative. And it’s this minimizing effect that makes it a (albeit slightly tenuous) candidate for the lesser known opposite of exaggeration.
4. The opposite of ‘Juxtaposition’ is:
‘Tautology’
(from the Greek tautología meaning ‘repetition of something already said’)
Whereas juxtaposition is a technique responsible for some of literature’s most enduring images with its intentional use of contrast, tautology - the needless repetition of the same idea or image - can make the speaker or writer sound rather iffy in the grammar department.
My friend gave me a great example of a tautology the other day.
He was outraged when he discovered a poster promoting a play set at a wedding was removed from Transport For London’s advertising network as it depicted a wedding cake. Seriously.
The cake was — according to the inexplicable prioritising of cancel culture over common sense by the TFL — deemed unsuitable because it contravened their advertising policy as it ‘promoted foods with a high sugar content.’ Essentially, their argument was that it showed an unhealthy cake. And that’s a tautology.
Because as my friend pointed out, a cake is, by its very nature, unhealthy.
Using the phrase ‘unhealthy cake’ is as dimwitted and tautological as saying ‘the man was a victim of an unpleasant stabbing’ or he was ‘stabbed 80 times by a murderous killer.’
But there are more common tautologies — only the other day I heard a mother expressing her outrage to a friend that their child had woken her up at ‘6:00 am in the morning.’
5. The opposite of Déjà vu is:
‘Jamais vu’
(from French, meaning ‘never seen’)
This awesome little phrase is arguably the opposite of Déjà vu.
This is because while Déjà vu describes the sense of inexplicable familiarity in a seemingly not yet experienced setting, Jamais vu describes the feeling of finding something that is generally or even extremely familiar suddenly unfamiliar.
If you’ve ever repeated a word so many times it lost its meaning, then you’ve been experiencing Jamais vu.
It even describes a more specific scenario (which I experienced once when staring at my dad) when you look at someone you know extremely well and their face or part of their face becomes momentarily alien.
So…
Know you know your Jamais vu from your Déjà vu, your tautology from your juxtaposition and your exaggeration from your litotes.
My only hope now is that some of these words come up in the next pub quiz you attend. I’ll grant you, it will have to feature a pretty niche linguistic round, but here’s hoping. 🤞
Check out more of my word nerdery here.
