The Distinction Between English Synonyms
Name:
Duan Jia
Number:
2002054103
Instructor:
Prof. Gao Enguang
Major:
English
Specialty:
Stylistics
Department: Foreign Languages Department
May 20, 2006
Duan Jia
The Distinction Between English Synonyms
Thesis Statement: English synonyms can be mainly distinguished in three ways: meaning, coloring and
usage
Outline:
Introduction
1. Differences in Meaning
1.1. Differences in dimension
1.2. Differences in emphasis
1.3. Differences in weight
2. Differences in Coloring
2.1. Differences in emotion
2.2. Differences in formality
2.3. Differences in dialect
3. Differences in Usage
3.1. Differences in grammatical features
3.2. Differences in object
3.3. Differences in collocation
Conclusion
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The Distinction Between English Synonyms
Duan Jia
(Foreign Languages Department, Taiyuan Normal University, Taiyuan, 030012,China)
Abstract: A large number of new words and terms flock in the English vocabulary and English has a
variety of expressive methods making it possible to express the same meaning by different
words. Therefore English synonyms are so abundant that it is possible to describe the
colorful world and to express the complicated, delicate human thought and emotions. But
they bring people many problems such as the correct choice of words from synonyms. The
reason for this problem is the insufficient knowledge of the distinction of English synonyms,
which have differences in many aspects. This paper offers three main aspects in
distinguishing English synonyms that include words’ meaning, coloring and usage.
Key words: synonyms; distinguishing; words’ meaning; color; usage
英语同义词辨析
段佳
（太原师范学院外语系，中国, 太原, 030012）
摘要：英语中不断出现大量的新词，其表达方式也多种多样，使得人们能够用不同的单词或短语来表
达同一个意思。英语同义词数量丰富，使得丰富多彩的世界和人们复杂细微的思想感情的表达
成为可能。但是它也给人们带来了许多问题，诸如如何正确的选词。这个问题的原因在于缺乏
对同义词区别的了解。各组同义词在许多方面有不同的差异。本文对同义词差异主要从词义、
色彩和用法三方面来予以辨析。
关键词：同义词；辨析；词义；色彩；用法
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Duan Jia
English
2002054103
Gao Enguang
May20,2006
The Distinction Between English Synonyms
Introduction
It is an uncontroversial fact that English vocabulary is of great number. With the development of
economy, the improvement of society, and the ever-changing science and technology, a large number of
new words and terms flock in the vocabulary. Besides, English has a variety of expressive methods,
making it possible to express the same meaning by different words. Therefore, English synonyms are so
abundant that it is possible to describe the colorful world and to express the complicated, delicate human
thoughts and emotions. While the abundant synonyms offer English users opportunities to show their
language competence, they bring them many difficulties in mastering the expressions. One common
problem is the correct choice of words from synonyms. One reason for this problem is the insufficient
knowledge of the distinction of synonyms. Though English synonyms are abundant, they have differences
in limited aspects. They can be mainly distinguished in three ways: meaning, coloring and usage.
Synonym means a word or phrase with the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or
phrase in the same language. Some English meanings have a variety of expressions. For example,
statistically, there are “ 18 different words which can be used to express the same meaning of ‘beautiful’;
21 words for ‘begin’; 28 words for ‘pure’; and 42 for ‘friendly’.”(Collins, 1985: 96)
In American
English, the “money” has many synonyms such as beans, bucks, cash, chips, dough, funds, the needful,
the wherewithal, etc. The synonyms are large in amount; therefore, a correct choice of them is important
just as Ivor Brown said，“ The craftsman is proud and careful of his tools; the surgeon does not operate
with an old razor-blade; the sportsman fusses happily and long over the choice of rod, gun, club or racquet.
But the man who is working in words, unless he is a professional writer (and not always then), is
singularly neglectful of his instruments.” (Brown, Internet)
Choosing a wrong word can be imprecise or
awkward, let alone convey an unwanted implication. The correct choice must depend on clear
discrimination of synonyms. Differences always come up when one talks about synonym because no two
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absolute synonyms are actually identical. There must be differences in each group of synonyms.
1. Differences in meaning
1.1 Dimension
English synonyms usually have the same literal meaning but a few semantic differences. A
conspicuous character of English synonym groups is that in a group of synonyms there is often one word
containing a large dimension of meaning and used in common, while the others only have an aspect of
meaning of the word and are often used on a certain occasion with various special semantic meanings. For
example, in the synonymous group “look, glance, peep, gaze, stare, eye”, the word “look” has a large
dimension of meaning and is of common use, while the other words mean looking in a special way and are
always used on limited special occasions: “glance” means a short, quick look; “peep” means a secret
glance; “gaze” means a long, steady look, often caused by surprise or admiration; “stare” means a very
surprised look or a very ill-mannered gaze; “eye” means to watch carefully. In the group “laugh, chortle,
chuckle, giggle, guffaw, snicker, snigger, titter”, “laugh” is of great dimension of meaning, but others are
used respectively in special ways and different situations. “Chortle” means loud chuckle of pleasure or
amusement; “chuckle” means laughing quietly or to oneself; “giggle” means laughing lightly in a nervous
or silly way; “guffaw” means a noise laugh; “snicker” means laughing in a suppressed, especially
unpleasant way; “snigger” means half-suppressed unpleasant laugh, especially at something improper or at
another’s misfortune; “titter” means short nervous laugh.
1.2 Emphasis
A word contains denotative and connotative meanings. Synonyms usually have the same denotative
meaning but different connotative meanings that are shown by their emphases. English synonyms are
abundant for its wide-ranging origin. However, each word in each group of synonyms has changed
obviously towards different directions in the semantic distribution in the long course of development of
the English language and has different emphasis under its basic meaning. For example, the group “ox, bull,
bullock, calf, cow, heifer, steer, vealer” all mean a kind of family animal. “Ox” is the most common word
in this group with a general meaning for both castrated or uncastrated animal in ox family, usually used for
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reproduction; “bullock” and “steer” both refer to the castrated bull, but the former usually emphasizes the
one for land-plough, the latter is raised for its meat; “cow” and “heifer” both refer to the uncastrated
female of any animal in ox family, but the former emphasizes the fully-grown one especially the domestic
kind kept by farmers to produce milk and beef, the latter emphasizes the young cow, especially one that
has not yet had a calf, while “calf” means young cattle of both sex; “vealer” means flesh of a calf used as
meat. In the group “young, youthful, juvenile, adolescent”, their emphases are different. “Young”
emphasizes youngness in age meaning the one of recent birth or origin; “youthful” means having qualities
typical of youth; “juvenile” means the young person under 12 years old emphasizing the state of not being
mature in physiology and intellect; “adolescent” emphasizes time of a person’s childhood and mature
adulthood that is roughly between the ages of 13 and 17.
1.3 Weight
In every English synonymous group, each word carries different “weight” in meaning (i.e., they
express the meaning of different extent or degrees of intensity). ‘‘In degree of a given quality or in shade
of meaning, some synonyms have the same denotative sense with differences in degree of intensity ’’
( Zhang Yunfei, 1988: 193 ) For example, the group “cold, cool, chilly, frigid, frosty, icy” has the same
basic meaning when they refer to temperature. However, “cool” means fairly cold; not hot or warm and as
not as strong as “cold” to some extent. “Chilly” is just between “cool” and “cold”; “frigid” and “frosty”
both mean very cold just under the freezing point, but the former is more serious than the latter in the
extent of coldness; “icy” means the temperature reaches the freezing point which is as cold as ice. Another
example is the group “break, crack, crush, demolish, destroy, shatter, smash”. “Break” is a common word
meaning separating (a whole object) into two or more parts as a result of force or strain; “crack” means
breaking something open but not into pieces; “crush” means pressing or squeezing something into pieces
from outside to inside or from up to down; “demolish’’ means pulling or knocking down a building etc;
“destroy” refers to damaging something so badly that it no longer exists; “shatter” refers to breaking
suddenly and violently into small pieces; “smash” means breaking completely into pieces by a burst of
violence with sound. Another group “let, allow, permit” has same basic meaning, but they are different in
“weight” of meaning. “Let” has the lightest meaning; “allow” carries a strong weight; and “permit” is the
strongest among the three.
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2. Differences in coloring
2.1 Emotion
Some synonyms refer to the same thing but reflect people’s different emotional ‘‘attitudes towards
what the word refers to’’ ( Qian Yuan, 1991:126) , often with one word neutral, one word carrying positive,
affirmative and favorable color while another one carrying negative, derogatory and hateful color. For
example, in the group “crowd, gathering, assembly, mob”, the word “crowd” is a neutral word; “gathering
and assembly” have commendatory color while “mob” is of pejorative color. In the group “friend,
comrade, crony”, “friend” is neutral; “comrade” contains favorable color, while “crony” reflects people’s
derogatory attitude. When we talk about somebody who is too light in weight, we may say “underweight”
which is of balanced emotive color, or we may say, “slim” showing our favorable attitude or “skinny”
showing our negative attitude. It is more persuasive to compare the synonyms in sentences as follows:
(1) Students admire her for her wide range of knowledge.
(2) It is unwise of you to be jealous of others and to speak evil of others.
(3) Miss Zhang’s beauty is the envy of a lot of women.
Though “admire”, ‘‘be jealous of’’ and “envy” refer to the same basic thing, they reflect people’s
different attitudes. The first one is of positive color; the second is just opposite to the first one, the third
one contains both attitudes of the above two.
2.2 Formality
Words in a group of synonyms always can be distinguished from the extent of their formality that is a
stylistic color though they refer to the same thing. Some word is suitable to be used on a common occasion,
and some word is a little bit formal while the others are informal. ‘‘The degrees of formality are
determined by the role, relationships, number of hearers, and contexts of situation… The formal English is
found in official documents, regulations, and business letters of ceremonial speeches. Informal English is
found typically in private conversations or personal letters. It is also used nowadays in advertisements and
popular newspapers’’(ibid.:212). The synonyms should be used according to the styles of different articles.
In the group ‘‘criticize, upbraid, knock’’, “criticize” is a common word; “upbraid” is formal and often used
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in written English; “knock” belongs to informal style. There are many other examples as follows:
Common Words
Formal Words
Informal Words
artificial
factitious
fake
cowardly
pusillanimous
chicken
excitement
impassion
turn-on
go to bed
retire
sack out
home
residence
pad
stop
desist
cut it out
wife
spouse
ball and chain
H·W·Fowler once remarked that “in official announcements ‘commence’ is appropriate; the
‘playbill’ tells us when the performance will commence, though we ask each other when it ‘begins’…The
grave historical style justifies commence, and historians, phrases, such as commence hostilities, keep their
form when transferred to other uses, though we begin and do not commence a quarrel; similarly we
commence operations, but merely begin a dinner.” (Fowler, Internet) Commence is of formal stylistic
color and suitable to be used on formal occasions. Though “begin” is synonymous with “commence”, it is
always used on common or informal occasions. Simeon Potter’s remark is worthy of quotation:
‘‘…Language is like dress. We vary our dress to suit the occasion. We do not appear at a friend’s silver
wedding anniversary in gardening clothes nor do we go punting on the river in a dinner jacket.’’ (Potter,
1999:130)
2.3 Dialect
English synonyms have differences in another kind of stylistic color that is dialect, which means that
people from different regions use different words to express the same meaning. In other words ‘‘ same
concept or reference, different word’’.(Qian Yuan, 1991:154) British English and American English have
the most obvious dialectal differences because each possesses large vocabulary of conventionally special
usage, which is well-known to all British people and Americans, such as elevator (AmE), lift (BrE); can
(AmE), tin (BrE); gasoline (AmE), petrol (BrE). Some words in one nation may make the majority of
another nation who speak different standard language feel perplexed, such as trunk (AmE), boot (BrE);
eraser (AmE), rubber (BrE); cover (AmE), report (BrE). Let us compare the following two sentences:
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(1) I have an assignment to cover the conference. (AmE)
(2) I have instructions to report the conference. (BrE)
“Assignment” in sentence (1) means task or duty that is assigned to somebody; “instructions” in
sentence (2) refer to orders or directions given. Though they are synonyms, they have regional differences.
“Cover” and “report” are also synonyms both meaning interviewing and giving an account of the
conference in the two sentences, but the former is American English, the latter is British English. Besides,
in some synonymous groups of different dialects, one word that is standard in one nation can only be used
in a certain context in another nation. For example, “shop” in British English is equivalent to goods or
services sold to the public. However, “shop” means a specialized small store in American English, such as
barbershop and shoe-repair shop.
3. Differences in usage
3.1 Grammatical Features
Grammatical features of words play an important role in distinguishing English synonyms. Their
grammatical features in usage mainly reflect some differences of synonyms. For example, “much” an
“many” refer to the same basic meaning, so do “little” and “few”. However, they contain different
grammatical features. “Much” and “little” are used to modify uncountable nouns, while “many” and “few”
are used to modify countable noun. They are changeable on no occasion. “Bare” and “naked” both contain
the meaning ‘‘without clothing’’, but the latter can be used as attributive and predicative; the former can
only be used as predicative. It is right to say: “The man is bare or naked”, but wrong to say: “a bare man”.
In the group “answer, reply, respond,” “answer” and “reply” are both transitive and intransitive verbs,
while “respond” can only be used as an intransitive verb. Take the following sentences for example:
(1) For the next few minutes the spokeswoman answered questions.
(2) China replied to America’ s violation of the Sino-US trade agreement with imposing punitive tax
on American exports to China.
(3) His audiences responded to his speech indifferently.
Some synonymous words such as living and alive are put in different positions: “living” is usually
put before a noun; “alive” is usually put after a noun. For example:
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(1) Jefferson once said, “The earth belongs to the living generation.”
(2) You are the happiest children alive.”
3.2 Object
English vocabulary is large and the distribution of words’ meaning is comparatively definite and clear.
Although some synonyms have the same meaning, coloring and grammatical feature, they are usually used
for different objects, which mean things or people to which thought, feelings or actions are directed.
Limited by different objects, the synonyms should be chosen carefully in different contexts. For example,
in the group “beautiful, handsome, pretty, “beautiful” is always used for female, but when used for
children, it can be used to describe both girls and boys. “Pretty” is not as strong as “beautiful” in meaning
and is also only used for female or children; whereas “handsome” is mainly for the male. When
“handsome” describes a female person, it only means that she is elegant. In the group “empty, vacant,
hollow”, “empty” can be used to modify “house, room, cup, box, stomach, head, words, etc” meaning
having nothing inside; “vacant” can be used to modify “position, room, house, seat, etc” meaning
unoccupied; ‘‘hollow’’ can be used to modify ‘‘ tree, voice, sound, cheeks’’ meaning “having a hole inside;
insincere; false; or sunken. Besides, we have many synonymous words to express the sound of animal, but
we use them for different objects, such as a lion roars; a bear growls; a wolf howls; and a fox yelps. We
also have many natural sounds, which have clear distributions and objects, such as a saw bazzes; a whip
lashes; the rain patters; a train rumbles. Synonymous verbs: say, speak, talk and tell have the same general
meaning of expression in words, but we say something, speak language, talk business and tell the truth.
Some synonymous nouns also show this kind of difference. The following is an example: a flock of sheep,
a herd of cows, a school of dolphins, a pack of wolves, and a swarm of flies. Here we use different nouns
to indicate the same meaning: a collection of, but we use them for different objects.
3.3 Collocation
Collocation means ‘‘the word or group of words with which a synonym is used correctly.’’ (Zhang
Yunfei, 1988:198) or ‘‘occurrence or sets of words tend to turn up together in texts.’’(Qian Yuan, 1991:126)
English language has many fixed collocation or set phrases and in theses collocation s, especially common
usages and idioms, the synonyms are not changeable. Limited by the collocations, the synonyms have
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different usages in different contexts. In the group “dismiss, discontinue, ban, revoke”, each word has its
own collocation. Take the following sentences for example:
(1) The official who is guilty of corruption and taking bribes has been dismissed from his post.
(2) The U.S will suffer most if it discontinues China’s most favored-nation status.
(3) Departments in charge of industry and commerce are authorized by the government to ban
speculation and profiteering.
(4) His driving license has been revoked once and for all because of his violation of traffic
regulations.
These synonyms all have their own usage and are not exchanged. Another example is the group
“effective, efficient”.
(1) This patent medicine is effective against rheumatic arthritis.
(2) The traffic policeman on point duty took effective measures to relieve traffic jams.
(3) An efficient executive, he soon had matters running smoothly.
(4) Efficient management is one of the factors, which will lower production cost.
In the group “keep, hold”, both have their fixed collocations such as “keep at”, “keep down” in
which “keep” cannot be displaced by “hold”. In the group “insist, persist ’’, we have “insist on” and
“persist in”. In the group “accuse, charge” we have “accuse of” and “charge with”. They all have their
fixed collocations and cannot be replaced by each other. Therefore, we should pay attention to the
different collocations of synonyms when we use them .
Conclusion
None of these different ways of distinguishing English synonyms are independent. Each word in each
group of synonyms should be distinguished in various aspects for each word contains multidimensional
nature in meaning, coloring and usage. We should connect these different aspects together systematically,
and then we can understand and distinguish the synonyms clearly and use them appropriately.
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