Words that mean their own opposite are contronyms. This video explains.
Words that mean their own opposite are contronyms. This video explains.
Today I Found Out did a piece on the origin of the phrase ‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings’. Turns out the saying in that form is of fairly recent origin, but traces its roots back to earlier expressions ‘Church is never out until they stop singing’.
After an emoji and a phrase by others, online dictionary Merriam-Webster have nominated a suffix as their word of the year. They base this on the number of searches for various words in their online dictionary, a substantial number of which share the suffix ‘ism’. sigh.
I find myself bemused again as a ‘word’ (phrase) I can barely remember reading before is selected as a word of the year. This time it’s ‘sharing economy’, the Australian National Dictionary Centre’s 2015 Word of the Year. I had heard of three of the other five, which comprised: three phrases, one portmanteau, and an …
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