I’m a big fan of contronyms, words with two opposite meanings. I first learned looking for a word to describe the change in “literally” from meaning, well, the literal meaning of something to also the figurative meaning.
Another good one is dust. You can dust your house to remove dust, but you can also dust a cake with powdered sugar.
Are they called shelled peanuts because they have their shells? or are they called shelled peanuts because they’ve been shelled, unshelling them? It’s literally ironic…
I’m a big fan of contronyms, words with two opposite meanings. I first learned looking for a word to describe the change in “literally” from meaning, well, the literal meaning of something to also the figurative meaning.
Another good one is dust. You can dust your house to remove dust, but you can also dust a cake with powdered sugar.
You would like german. The word “umfahren” can mean to drive around something or it can mean to run something over, depending on how you pronounce it.
I wonder if there’s a word for when a whole phrase has two opposite meanings without one of the words in it being a contronym (or using sarcasm, etc)
The example that made me think of this is a song lyric:
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before!
There’s the intended meaning of better than ever… But if I were to dance it would also be like I’ve never danced before.
Are they called shelled peanuts because they have their shells? or are they called shelled peanuts because they’ve been shelled, unshelling them? It’s literally ironic…
I’m a fan of cleave which can mean to split in two or to stick together. Each meaning has a different root.