Contronym

 ( Semantics ) 

Other contronyms are a form of polysemy (multiple meanings), but where a single word acquires different and ultimately opposite meanings or definitions. For example, sanction—"permit" or "penalize"; bolt (originally from )—"leave quickly" or "fix/immobilize"; fast—"moving rapidly" or "held fixed in place". Some English examples result from being verbed (in the patterns of "add <noun> to" and "remove <noun> from"), and some of these may appear contronymic: for example, dust.

and of words, too, can drift or branch over centuries. An story relates how Charles II (or sometimes Queen Anne) described St Paul's Cathedral (using contemporaneous English) as "awful, pompous, and artificial", with the meaning (rendered in modern English) of "awe-inspiring, majestic, and ingeniously designed."

Negative words such as italic=yes and sick sometimes acquire contrary or ironic senses depending on usage or by antiphrasis. They may thus refer to traits that are impressive and admired, if not necessarily good or positive ( the skateboarder's sick jump; that rap song is bad as hell; the movie Good Boys is full of sick burns).

In Latin language, sacer]] has the double meaning "sacred, holy" and "accursed, infamous". Greek δημιουργός]] gave Latin its demiurgus]], from which English got its , which can refer either to God as the creator deity or to the devil, depending on philosophical context. Some contronyms result from differences in varieties of English. For example, to table a motion or a bill (a draft piece of legislation) usually means "to put up for debate" in British English, while it means "to postpone, sometimes indefinitely, the consideration of" or "to remove from debate" in American English (for which British English would use "defer" or "shelve"). To , in Australian English, is "to loudly demonstrate support" (eg, for a sports team; "to cheer on"; or, in American English, "to root for"), whilst in British English it is "to express disapproval and contempt".

In some languages, a word stem associated with a single event may treat the action of that event as unitary, so in translation it may appear contronymic. For example, Latin hospes can be translated as both "guest" and "host". In some varieties of English, may mean both "borrow" and "lend".

• Original can mean "authentic, traditional", or "novel, never done before"
• Cleave can mean "to cling" or "to split apart".
• Clip can mean "attach" or "cut off".
• Dust can mean "to remove dust" (cleaning a house) or "to add dust" (e.g., to dust a cake with powdered sugar). This contradiction features in the children's book Amelia Bedelia. "Amelia Bedelia". LC Online Catalog. Library of Congress (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved 2016-02-18.
• Fast can mean "without moving; fixed in place", (holding fast, also as in "steadfast"), or "moving quickly".
• Obbligato in music traditionally means a passage is "obligatory" but has also been used to mean "optional"."Obbligato" in Lectionary of Music, Nicolas Slonimsky. McGraw-Hill "Obbligato" in Collins Music Encyclopedia, Westrup & Harrison: Collins, London, 1959
• Overlook can mean "to make an accidental omission or error" or "to engage in close scrutiny or control".
• Oversight can mean "accidental omission or error" or "close scrutiny or control".
• Peruse can mean to "consider with attention and in detail" or "look over or through in a casual or cursory manner".
• Ravel can mean "to separate" (e.g., threads in cloth) or "to entangle".
  (2025). 9780195418163, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195418163
• Sanction can mean "approve" or "penalize".
• Table can mean "to discuss a topic at a meeting" ( British English) or "to postpone discussion of a topic" ( American English). Canadian English uses both meanings of the word.
  (2025). 9780195418163, Oxford University Press Canada. ISBN 9780195418163

• The Korean language noun ( ap) may mean either "future" or "past" (distinguished by context).

• The German language verb , the Dutch language verb , the Afrikaans verb , the Polish language verb , the Russian language verb ( odolžítʹ), the Finnish language verb , and the Esperanto verb can mean either "to lend" or "to borrow", with grammatical case, pronouns, and mention of persons making the sense clear. The verb stem conveys that "a lending-and-borrowing event is occurring", and the other cues convey who is lending to whom. This makes sense because anytime lending is occurring, borrowing is simultaneously occurring; one cannot happen without the other.
• The German language verb can mean either "to drive around" or "to run over". The two variants are distinguished by stress, though. The Afrikaans verb omry can also mean either "to drive around" or "to run over", but with no distinction in pronunciation.
• The Romanian verb a închiria, the French language verb louer, the Afrikaans verb , the Finnish verb vuokrata and the Spanish alquilar and arrendar mean "to rent" (as the does) as well as "to let" (as the does). The English language verb can also describe either the lessee's or the lessor's role.
• The Swahili language verb kutoa means both "to remove" and "to add".
• The Chinese language word "打败" means both "to be defeated" and "to defeat".
• The Persian language verb چیدن ( čidan) means both "to pluck" and "to arrange" (i.e. by putting objects down).
• In Spanish (basic meaning "to give"), when applied to lessons or subjects, can mean "to teach", "to take classes" or "to recite", depending on the context. Similarly with the French language verb , which usually means "to learn" but may refer to the action of teaching someone. Dutch and Afrikaans '' can mean "to teach" or "to learn".
• The Indonesian verbs menghiraukan and mengacuhkan can mean "to regard" or "to ignore".
• In Greek language some verbs that begine with the prefix " από-" (apo-) can have a contranym meaning. A prominent example is the verb " " means " to plug something, to fill a hole", and it usually used as a medical term, based on the original ancient Greek meaning. The more modern Greek meaning is " to unplug something, remove a blockage". Similar verbs are " απογεμίζω", that can both mean " to fill up to a brim" and " to empty completely" and " απομαθαίνω", that can both mean " to learn something very well" and " to forget something I learned". The meaning that negates the main action, is usually a more modern Greek one. The prefix "apo-" sometimes enhances an action and sometimes negates it.

• and ( kal ) may mean either "yesterday" or "tomorrow" (disambiguated by the verb in the sentence).
• can mean "toward the sea" or "away from the sea" depending on dialect.
• can mean "a while ago" or "in a little bit/later on"

• The Italian language, Spanish language and French language cognates (respectively) , and can mean "host" or "guest". The three words derive from the Latin hospes, which also carries both meanings.

• The Latin meant both "auspicious" and "inauspicious", within the respective Roman and Greek traditions of augury. The negative meaning was carried on into French and ultimately English.
• Latin means "excessive, too much". It maintained this meaning in Spanish , but it was also misinterpreted as "insignificant, without importance".
• The Malay language adjective usah can mean "required" or "discouraged" (disambiguated by the use of tidak or tak "don't").
• In Vietnamese, means among other things "bright, clear" (from Sino-Vietnamese 明) and "dead, gloomy" (from 冥). Because of this, the name of the dwarf planet Pluto is not adapted from as in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
• Spanish meant originally "blissful, fortunate" as in tierra dichosa, "fortunate land". However it developed an ironic and colloquial meaning "bothersome, unlucky", as in ¡Dichosas moscas!, "Damned flies!".

• Īhām, ambiguity used as a literary device in Middle Eastern poetry
• -onym, suffix denoting a class of names
• Oxymoron, contradiction used as a figure of speech
• Semantics
• Skunked term, a term that becomes difficult to use because it is evolving from one meaning to another, or is otherwise controversial

• Sheidlower, Jesse (1 November 2005). "The Word We Love To Hate". Slate.
• Leithauser, Brad (14 October 2013). "Unusable Words". The New Yorker.
• Herman, Judith B. (30 May 2014). target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites". Mental Floss.
• Schulz, Kathryn (7 April 2015). What Part of "No, Totally" Don't You Understand?. The New Yorker.

• Autoantonyms page on fun-with-words.com
• List of English examples at LingerAndLook.com