Tuesday, June 05, 2007

More Words That Mean Their Own Opposites

I posted about words that mean their own opposites in Chinese before. Words like this are called contronyms or Janus words. Here are some in English:

Bill: invoice, money
Dust (v): add fine particles, remove fine particles
Model: archetype, copy
Custom: usual, special
Trim: cut off, add ("trim the Christmas tree")
Sanction: approve, boycott

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