What are homonyms?

Homonyms are two words that are spelt the same, and pronounced the same, but have a
different meaning. For example, “right”. This can mean the direction (opposite of left) or to be
correct.  There’s a lot of these crafty words in the English language, here are some more
examples with two meanings (note they may actually have more than two meanings):

 bark: the sound a dog makes / the outer-surface of a tree trunk

 kind: type of something / nice
 match: an object to make fire / a sports event
 ring: to call on a phone / a circular object (e.g. jewellery)
 well: good / a hole where water is sourced

What are contronyms?

Contronyms, are a specific group of homonyms, words that look and sound the same, but with
opposite, or nearly opposite, meanings. They are also known as contanyms, Janus words
(coming from the Roman two-faced god) or auto-antonyms (referring to being their own
antonym, a word of opposite meaning). For example, the verb “dust” can mean to apply dust
or to remove dust.

 She dusted the cake with icing sugar. (added)

 She dusted the shelves so they looked nice and clean. (removed)

There’s some flexibility in how people list or define contronyms, as often the different
meanings stem from a different word type, and are therefore not strictly opposites. For
example, “left” might be considered a contronym, because as a verb it can mean to go away,
while it is used as an adverb to describe something remaining.

 He left the party early. (went away)

 After the party, he was the only one left. (still there)

This isn’t an exactly opposite meaning in use, but it’s close enough.

Contronyms – Words that are their own

opposites
It’s worth learning contronyms to avoid confusion, and also to expand your vocabulary.
Mostly, there’s no easy way to know when these will occur, so you have to learn them
individually, and look out for the context to guess which meaning is used.

So, here are some examples of contronyms, or other confusingly similar words with different
meanings:
 Bill (noun) – either a receipt or an invoice
 Bolt (verb) – to secure something down or to move quickly away
 Clip (verb) – to attach together or to remove a part of (e.g. truncate)
 Dust (verb) – to add or to remove small particles
 Fast (adverb) – quick or made stable
 Finished (adjective) – completed or destroyed/ruined
 Hold up (verb) – to support or to hinder
 Left (past verb) – to have gone or Left (adverb) – remaining
 Off (adjective) – deactivated or Off (part of phrasal verb) – activated (e.g. for an alarm
to go off)
 Refrain (verb) – to stop or Refrain (noun) a repetition
 Rock (noun/adverb) – stone/solid or Rock (verb) – gentle motion back and forth
 Trip (noun) – a journey or Trip (verb) – to interrupt motion / stagger
 Weather (verb) – to withstand or to wear away