My theme for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is contronyms. A contronym is a word with two or more opposite meanings, making it its own antonym. Click here to find out more about these quirky words.
It’s slim pickings out there for an E contronym. In all my searching, I only found two. One was effectively, but I think it feels like a bit of a stretch. Here is how it was explained: “In effect (Doing the equivalent of the action but not the real thing) ~or~ With effect (Doing the action and doing it well) [Contrast ‘He is effectively lying’ with ‘He is lying effectively’].” Since this doesn’t feel like a straightforward contronym to me, evidently I’m stuck using enjoin as today’s example.
Enjoin – to order to do something, prescribe ~ or ~
Enjoin – to stop someone from doing something, prohibit (such as in law by an injunction)
Both definitions of enjoin are basically about being bossy – it’s just that one is ordering a person TO DO something, whereas the other is ordering a person TO NOT DO something.
The doctor enjoined the trendy new drug for his patients because they were overwhelmed with so many worries about the world. Meanwhile, the judge enjoined production of the miracle pill because he feared for a world overrun by apathetic citizens.
Blerg. What a boring contronym. If today is your first time stopping my blog for the A to Z challenge, then my apologies for such a blah day.
Are you familiar with contronyms? Even though I could not find any other E words on the various contronym lists, can you think of any? How Elegant is Lily with her letter E?
Bossy image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I use Mollum to help control spam in the comments, and it’s only supposed to challenge with a CAPTCHA if it suspects a comment might be spam. Comments make me happy, so if you happen to encounter a rare CAPTCHA, please persevere through the slight annoyance. Thank you!
My theme for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is contronyms. A contronym is a word with two or more opposite meanings, making it its own antonym. Click here to find out more about these quirky words.
It’s slim pickings out there for an E contronym. In all my searching, I only found two. One was effectively, but I think it feels like a bit of a stretch. Here is how it was explained: “In effect (Doing the equivalent of the action but not the real thing) ~or~ With effect (Doing the action and doing it well) [Contrast ‘He is effectively lying’ with ‘He is lying effectively’].” Since this doesn’t feel like a straightforward contronym to me, evidently I’m stuck using enjoin as today’s example.
Enjoin – to order to do something, prescribe ~ or ~
Enjoin – to stop someone from doing something, prohibit (such as in law by an injunction)
Both definitions of enjoin are basically about being bossy – it’s just that one is ordering a person TO DO something, whereas the other is ordering a person TO NOT DO something.
The doctor enjoined the trendy new drug for his patients because they were overwhelmed with so many worries about the world. Meanwhile, the judge enjoined production of the miracle pill because he feared for a world overrun by apathetic citizens.
Blerg. What a boring contronym. If today is your first time stopping my blog for the A to Z challenge, then my apologies for such a blah day.
Are you familiar with contronyms? Even though I could not find any other E words on the various contronym lists, can you think of any? How Elegant is Lily with her letter E?
Bossy image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I use Mollum to help control spam in the comments, and it’s only supposed to challenge with a CAPTCHA if it suspects a comment might be spam. Comments make me happy, so if you happen to encounter a rare CAPTCHA, please persevere through the slight annoyance. Thank you!
