[awm]

It recently came to my attention that the word sanctioned is its own antonym. It can mean either "permitted" (as in sanctioned game) or disallowed (as in sanctioned player).

Another example is "table" (as in table a bill, not a physical table) -- in the US this basically means "to make go away" or "to put on the shelf" such that it is removed from consideration, whereas in the UK it means "to bring to a vote".

Does anyone have other examples like this?

[jillybean]

I believe they are also known as contronyms

Bolt:
Secure, as in bolt a door.
Flee, escape, run away.

I wonder what 3 way contronyms are called

Fast:
1. Speedy
2. Secure, the boat was made fast at the dock
3. Go without food

[PassedOut]

Oversight:
-Watching over
-Didn't see

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2025-May-03, 13:41, said:

I believe they are also known as contronyms

Bolt:
Secure, as in bolt a door.
Flee, escape, run away.

I wonder what 3 way contronyms are called

Fast:
1. Speedy
2. Secure, the boat was made fast at the dock
3. Go without food

I won't bother you with 4 way which is quite possible in Italian, a language with about a quarter of the words of English and all the same meanings

[smerriman]

The one that annoys me most when reading sports articles is when a coach resigns.. are they leaving, or staying?

[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2025-May-03, 15:28, said:

I won't bother you with 4 way which is quite possible in Italian, a language with about a quarter of the words or English and all the same meanings

please share

[Cyberyeti]

smerriman, on 2025-May-03, 16:11, said:

The one that annoys me most when reading sports articles is when a coach resigns.. are they leaving, or staying?

That's different, in that the words are pronounced differently, it's purely a written problem. The others work spoken and written.

[smerriman]

Slightly different yes, though a homophone is not a requirement of a contronym.

[shyams]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-May-04, 02:01, said:

That's different, in that the words are pronounced differently, it's purely a written problem. The others work spoken and written.

Yes.

Also, in the past, UK English would require the written word to feature a hyphen i.e. 're-signs'.

Admittedly, it's been years since hyphenation of such words was considered normal.

[Cyberyeti]

Set is another with bridge relevance:

Set for life (or to set up a suit)

When the smoke cleared declarer suffered a 4 trick set

[WasWinM]

Buckle-to hold a belt together
Buckle-to collapse

[jillybean]

Bill credit card bill, phone bill, gas bill

Bill bank note


This may be specific to North America and caused much confusion when I moved to Canada.

[jillybean]

Hold up

• Hold something above your head
  
• Traffic jam
  
• Used threat of gun to retrain someone
  
• Hold up playing winners in suit

Does anyone have a 5 way?

[Cyberyeti]

jillybean, on 2025-May-05, 10:01, said:

Hold up

• Hold something above your head
  
• Traffic jam
  
• Used threat of gun to retrain someone
  
• Hold up playing winners in suit

Does anyone have a 5 way?

Set has a double figure number of meanings, some of which are opposites

[Zelandakh]

The one that tends to go with sanction and table is oversight, which in turn is often linked with overlook. Probably the most common that have not already been mentioned are original, clip and cleave. By far the most famous homophone contronym is weather. Finally fast is quite a good one, since in addition to its contronym meanings, it also has a couple of additional possibilities, one which fits rather well to Easter.

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2025-May-05, 10:01, said:

Hold up

• Hold something above your head
  
• Traffic jam
  
• Used threat of gun to retrain someone
  
• Hold up playing winners in suit

Does anyone have a 5 way?

Maybe there was a 5th here

[jillybean]

I tried to delete the above post as I realized they weren't antonyms but forums was bust and I couldn't do so.