English is notoriously hard to learn, but contronyms may be trickiest words of all

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/contronym

I know a lot of contronyms, like table (put up for discussion | remove from discussion) and cleave (split apart | adhere together). I didn't know that livid was one until I read a sentence in Beyond the Vanishing Point by Ray Cummings:

❝The blood drained suddenly from his face and lips, leaving them livid.❞

So the #contronym can mean both flushed (bruised or angry) or pallid. I'd only encountered the first meaning before. #usage #vocabulary #contranym

@jasmine

Literally. English should be sanctioned. It's quite transparent.

Now, please excuse me - I must go dust my cake and my shelves, then clip some paperwork.

😆

#contronym

Edited to add hashtag.

Is "dropped" a #contronym now?

As in "the artist just dropped their new album"

Has the album been published or unpublished?

@lingthusiasm #language #words

I think in Dutch they might even be rarer 🙄

#contronym #language

@sc_griffith

i mean technically yeah, workers are entitled to benefits in return for the fruits of their labors, but lately when people say “entitled” they mean “with a greedy and unjustified sense of entitlement” i.e. “not entitled”

it’s a shame, but also amusing, when a word becomes its own antonym

#linguistics #autoantonym #contranym #contronym #antagonym

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

Channelling my inner @eumiro, here is a #langtoot with two fun German #contronym⁠s:

The words umfahren (stress on the first syllable) and umfahren (stress on the second syllable) mean to run down and to go around, respectively.

The words abdecken and abdecken (no difference whatsoever) mean to violently remove the shingles from a roof — as in a storm, and to cover something with a tarpaulin — such as a damaged roof, after a storm. They can also, more broadly, mean cover and uncover.