Antonymy is the semantic relationship between lexical items that express opposite or contrary meanings along a defined dimension. The parameters that carve it are: (1) the relation holds between word pairs such as hot/cold or alive/dead; (2) the opposition falls into types — gradable (hot/cold), binary/complementary (alive/dead), or relational/converse (buy/sell); (3) the dimension of opposition must be shared: 'fast' and 'heavy' are not antonyms because they operate on different scales. It persists through language usage, dictionaries, and linguistic description as a structural feature of lexical organization.
Accepted ontology entry
antonymy
Antonymy is the semantic relationship between lexical items that express opposite or contrary meanings along a defined dimension. The parameters that carve it are: (1) the relation holds between word pairs such as hot/cold or alive/dead; (…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made linguistic concept describing the relationship between words or expressions that have opposite or contrary meanings along a defined dimension. Persisted through language usage, dictionaries, and linguistic analysis.
Names and aliases
- antonymyen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrndsaht0282d1nll9cckx9qINSTANCE_OF →
Law 9: specific→general. Antonymy IS a specific kind of concept — the linguistic concept of opposite meaning between words. A competent speaker would call antonymy 'a concept.' Nearest kind: concept.
- cms7jh88z01oga34c4xd83pxeINSTANCE_OF →
Antonymy is a specific kind of semantic relation — the relation between words with opposite meanings. Law 9: the specific (antonymy) points at the general (semantic-relation). A competent speaker would call antonymy 'a semantic relation'.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 29, 2026, 12:13 AM UTC
- Content hash
- ee36808ec1aae95dfc317227f5fd538265b4a0ce21fd63b65485aa65c39e41f8