synonym

1. A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.
2. A word or an expression that serves as a figurative or symbolic substitute for another.
3. Biology. A scientific name of an organism or of a taxonomic group that has been superseded by another name at the same rank.

[Middle English sinonyme, from Old French synonyme, from Latin synōnymum, from Greek sunōnumon, from neuter of sunōnumos, synonymous. See synonymous.]

synonym, a word that has the same—or virtually the same—meaning as another word, and so can substitute for it in certain contexts. This identity of meaning is called synonymy.

Adjective: synonymous.

Two words are synonyms when they mean the same. Similarly two phrases or sentences are synonymous when they mean the same. The usual criterion is that meaning is preserved when they are substituted one for the other. Two terms may be cognitively synonymous although associated with a different tone, and the choice of one synonym or another may have implicatures, but these will not be due to a difference of what is actually said. However, the notorious difficulties for translators of finding synonyms across different languages testifies to the delicate problem of quite how much is built into the meaning of terms. Philosophically, synonymy was crucial to the methodology of the analytic tradition, whose goal of laying out the structure of our concepts is only realistic if we know whether what is displayed is in fact the structure of the original, and not some reconstruction or differing concept altogether. Knowing this will require judging whether the analysans or analysing expression is indeed synonymous with the analysandum or expression to be analysed. Although difficulties with the relationship had always been recognized, it was Quine who first made an effective attack on the notion of synonymy, in his widely influential article ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951). Quine complained that the ideal of synonymy demands a sharp division between what we put down to linguistic convention, and what we put down to generally held truths about the world, but that in practice this division cannot be sustained. The question of whether we have ‘changed the meaning’ of a term when we come to believe something new about its subject matter is generally speaking unanswerable and unprofitable. The extent of Quine's critique is, however, problematic. It seems essential to any understanding of language, and especially any belief that logic applies to language, that terms mean the same on one occurrence as they do on another, so at least in some cases a notion of synonymy must be applicable. A compromise would be that a notion of synonymy is applicable when in our actual practices of interpretation we refuse to contemplate the possibility of meaning shift; however, when such possibilities genuinely arise, the way we settle the matter may be subject to a high degree of indeterminacy. See also indeterminacy of translation.

Words that mean roughly the same thing. Container and receptacle are synonyms.

An alternative name for the same disease, sign, bacteria, etc. A key word or sign may have a number of synonyms.

One of two or more words that have the same or nearly identical meanings.

This article deals with the general meaning of the term "synonym". For biological synonyms, see Synonym (taxonomy).

Synonyms are different words (or sometimes phrases) with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn (σύν) ("with") and onoma (ὄνομα) ("name"). The words car and automobile are synonyms. Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:

"a widespread impression that … Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

Synonyms can be any part of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions), as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. More examples of English synonyms are:

• student and pupil (noun)
• petty crime and misdemeanor (noun)
• buy and purchase (verb)
• sick and ill (adjective)
• quickly and speedily (adverb)
• on and upon (preposition)

Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Similarly, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.

In English many synonyms evolved from a mixture of Norman French and English words, often with some words associated with the Saxon countryside ("folk", "freedom") and synonyms with the Norman nobility ("people", "liberty").

Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms.

The purpose of a thesaurus is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.

Related terms

Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example:

• short and tall
• dead and alive
• increase and decrease

The words synonym and antonym are themselves antonyms.

Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a specific instance of that category. For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a hyponym of vehicle.

Homonyms are words that sound or are spelled the same, but have different meanings.

See also

• -onym
• Synonym ring
• Thesaurus
• Cognitive synonymy

External links

Look up synonym in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Synonyms.net - Online synonyms thesaurus reference resource that also provides images for search terms.
• Thesaurus - Online synonyms in English, Italian, French and German.
• Free Online English Thesaurus and Dictionary. Free Online English Thesaurus and dictionary containing synonyms, related Words, antonyms, definitions, idioms, words and terms using Merriam Websters Thesaurus, Wordnet Reference and Roget's Thesaurus Definitions.
• Synonym tool for websites - creates lists of synonyms for arbitrary page on WWW
• English Synonym Dictionary - offers 500 searches for synonym per user per day
• Synonyms - Over 100 000 synonyms
• English - Synonyms - Free Dictionary Translation
• French synonyms
• iGoogle Gadget - Synonym Gadget for iGoogle
• Synonym, thesaurus - Thesaurus database

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - synonym, andet ord med samme betydning

Nederlands (Dutch)
synoniem

Français (French)
n. - synonyme

Deutsch (German)
n. - Synonym

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - συνώνυμο, συνώνυμη ή ταυτόσημη λέξη

Italiano (Italian)
sinonimo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sinônimo (m)

Русский (Russian)
синоним, отождествление

Español (Spanish)
n. - sinónimo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - synonym

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
同义字, 同物异名, 类义字

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 同義字, 同物異名, 類義字

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 동의어, 유의어

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 類義語, シノニム, 同意語

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) المرادف , المترادف‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מילה קרובה במשמעותה, מילה נרדפת, סינונים‬

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