" antonym "

[Noun]  | "an*to*nym" | \ ˈan-tə-ˌnim \

1: a word of opposite meaning

Origin: 1857 ;

 Borrowed from French antonyme, probably back-formation (after synonyme {see: |synonym|synonym}) from antonymie opposition of words with contrary senses, borrowed from Greek antōnymía pronoun (i.e., a word substituting for another), interchange of names, from ant-, anti- in opposition to, in place of + -ōnymos having a name (of the kind specified) + -ia {see: |-ia:1|-ia:1} {mat|anti-|}, {mat|homonymous|} ;

  * Note : French antonyme appears in the title and text of Dictionnaire des antonymes ou contremots (Paris & Berlin, 1842), an early dictionary of antonyms compiled from 17th-18th-century authors by the Alsatian philologist Paul Ackermann (1812-46), who may have coined the word. In English antonym was promulgated, if not first used, by the British clergyman Charles John Smith (1819-72) in Synonyms and Antonyms, Collected and Contrasted (London: Bell & Daldy, 1867), which went through several subsequent editions and reprints.;

[Noun]  | "antonym"