Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. [1] Such words usually have a prefix or suffix that would imply that there is an antonym , with the prefix or suffix being absent or opposite.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
The following is a list of English words without rhymes, called refractory rhymes—that is, a list of words in the English language that rhyme with no other English word. The word "rhyme" here is used in the strict sense, called a perfect rhyme, that the words are pronounced the same from the vowel of the main stressed syllable onwards.
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: [11]
Ain't has been called "the most stigmatized word in the language", [25] as well as "the most powerful social marker" in English. [26] It is a prominent example in English of a shibboleth – a word used to determine inclusion in or exclusion from, a group. [25] Historically, this was not so.
Asterisks (*) denote words and meanings having appreciable (that is, not occasional) currency in American English, but are nonetheless notable for their relatively greater frequency in British speech and writing. British English spelling is consistently used throughout the article, except when explicitly referencing American terms.
Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian period [1] A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. [2] For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are ...
pseudoword: a nonsense word that still follows the phonotactics of a particular language and is therefore pronounceable, feeling to native speakers like a possible word (for example, in English, blurk is a pseudoword, but bldzkg is a nonword); thus, pseudowords follow a language's phonetic rules but have no meaning [10]