Synonyms are words with the same or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be
synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called
synonymy. The word comes from
Ancient Greek syn (
σύν) ("with") and
onoma (
ὄνομα) ("name"). An example of synonyms are the words
begin and
commence. Likewise, if we talk about a
long time or an
extended time,
long and
extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:
:"a widespread impression that... Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (
Doris Kearns Goodwin)
Synonyms can be any
part of speech (such as
nouns,
verbs,
adjectives,
adverbs or
prepositions), as long as both words are the same part of speech. Here are more examples of English synonyms:
verb
"buy" and "purchase"
adjective
"big" and "large"
adverb
"quickly" and "speedily"
preposition
"on" and "upon"
Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance,
pupil as the
"aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with
student. Likewise,
he expired means the same as
he died, yet
my passport has expired cannot be replaced by
my passport has died.
In English, many synonyms emerged in the
Middle Ages, after the
Norman conquest of England. While
England's new ruling class spoke
Norman French, the lower classes continued to speak
Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Thus, today we have synonyms like the Norman-derived
"people",
"liberty" and
"archer", and the Saxon-derived
"folk",
"freedom" and
"bowman". For more examples, see the
list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English.
Some
lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because
etymology,
orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason:
feline is more formal than
cat;
long and
extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a
long arm is not the same as an
extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of
euphemisms.
The purpose of a
thesaurus is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.