This article is about the general meaning of the term "synonym". For biological synonyms see Synonym (taxonomy). Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet Neo-Assyrian period. Ref:K.4375 .

Synonyms are different words with almost identical 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 () ("with") and onoma () ("name"). The words car and automobile are synonyms. Similarly 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 (e.g. nouns verbs adjectives adverbs or prepositions) as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. More examples of English synonyms are: noun "student" and "pupil" "petty crime" and "misdemeanor" verb "buy" and "purchase" adjective "sick" and "ill" 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. Similarly 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 evolved from the parallel use in the early medieval period of Norman French (from Latin) and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words often with some words being used principally by the Saxon peasantry ("folk" "freedom" "bowman") and their synonyms by the Norman nobility ("people" "liberty" "archer").

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. (Rooted derivatives are not synonymous such as: to force - forcingclarification needed) Related terms

Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example: short and tall dead and alive increase and decrease add and subtract

Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to respectively a general category and a specific instance of that category. For example vehicle is a hypernym of car and car is a hyponym of vehicle.

Homonyms are words that sound or are spelled the same but have different meanings. See also -onym Synonym ring Thesaurus Cognitive synonymy Antonym Homonyms identical or very similar words with different meanings (conceptual inversion of "synonym") External links Look up synonym in Wiktionary the free dictionary. Synonym Finder - Synonym finder including hypernyms in search result. Synonym.com - Synonyms Thesaurus with Antonyms & Definitions Thesaurus - Online synonyms in English Italian French and German. Woxikon Synonyms - Over 1 million synonyms - English German Spanish French Italian Portuguese Swedish and Dutch Free Online English Thesaurus and Dictionary. Free Online English Thesaurus and dictionary containing synonyms related Words antonyms definitions idioms words and terms using Merriam Websters Thesaurus Wordnet Reference and Roget's Thesaurus Definitions. English Synonym Dictionary - offers 500 searches for synonym per user per day iGoogle Gadget - Synonym Gadget for iGoogle v d eLexicography Types of reference works Dictionary  Glossary  Lexicon  Thesaurus Types of dictionaries Bilingual  Biographical  Conceptual  Defining  Electronic  Encyclopedic  Language for specific purposes dictionary  Machine-readable  Maximizing  Medical  Minimizing  Monolingual learner's  Multi-field  Phonetic  Picture  Reverse  Rhyming  Rime  Single-field  Specialized  Sub-field  Visual Lexicographic projects Lexigraf  WordNet Other List of lexicographers  List of online dictionaries v d eLexicology Major terms Lexicon  Idiolect  Word  Lexis  Lexical unit Elements Morpheme  Grapheme  Glyphs  Phoneme  Sememe  Seme  Lexeme  Lemma  Meronymy  Chereme Semantic relations Holonymy  Hyponymy  Troponymy  Idiom  Synonym  Antonymy  Lexical semantics  Semantic net Fonctions Function word  Headword Fields Morphology  Controlled vocabulary  English lexicology and lexicography  Lexicographic error  Lexicographic information cost  Linguistic prescription  Specialised lexicography  International scientific vocabulary