Sources of Synonyms

The English language is exceptionally rich in synonyms because in the course of its development it was greatly influenced by the languages it came into contact: Latin, French, Danish, Italian, Spanish and etc… Greek and Latin were the basic languages employed by British scholars. Thus, the richest source of synonyms for native words is classical.

1. Borrowing from other languages:

The difference between borrowed words and native elements may be first of all stylistic:

• empty – devoid (Fr) – vacuous (L);

• teaching – guidance (Fr) – instruction (L);

• belly – stomach (Fr) – abdomen (L).

As soon as we introduce a borrowed word into the language it states immediate changes in existing vocabulary. when two words are close in meaning and usage one of them is sure either to change its meaning or to drop out of the language:

• Beorg (OE) was replaced by mountain;

• Niman (OE) was replaced by take.

Land as a highly polysemantic word was used in various contexts but in the course of its semantic development remained only a member of a synonymic group:

Land – earth – ground –soil.

When new synonyms appear in the language the old words modify their meaning and distribution. This process is called synonymic differentiation and is regarded as one of the laws of the language development.

II. Borrowing of synonyms may take place from numerous dialects and variants of English, especially from American English:

girl - lass (С), charm - glamour (С), child - bairn (C), liquor - whiskey (C);

flat – appartment (Am.), elevator – lift (Am.), sweets – candy (Am.), pictures – movies (Am.)

III. Word Building plays a considerably important role in creating synonyms. Synonyms may be formed practically. by all existing ways of word building: affixation, composition, conversion, shortening, etc.:

return – bring back, deceive – take in, continue – go on, regeneration – feedback, arrangement – layout, vegetables – vegs, mathematics – maths.

A very frequent type of forming synonyms is combing a noun with a verbal stem – with a verb of generic meaning to build a phraseological collocation:

to bathe – to have a bath, to take a bath;

to smoke – to have a smoke;

to walk – to take a walk;

to smile – to give a smile.

These synonyms differ in their aspective and emphatic characteristics.

Of special interest is a group of synonyms with the same root element (hate – hatred, faithless – unfaithful, goalee – goal-keeper, among – amongst, ungrateful – ingrateful). They should not be ignored as their total number in the vocabulary amounts to 70.000 word-pairs. One of the members may be obsolete: fisherman - fisher (obs.), demand - mand (obs.), dislike - mislike (obs.), stylistically marked: scanty - scant (bookish), slippery - slippy (coll.), baby - babe (poet.), territorially marked: acclimatize - acclimate (American), notice-board – bulletin-board (American).

IV. A specific source of synonyms to harsh, unpleasant, obscene, blasphemous, offensive words is euphemy. Euphemistic substitutions exist in all linguistic communities and historically go back to ancient taboo. Thus, the word God is substituted by phonetically similar goodness or gosh in interjections.

There are certain words expressing ideas considered unmentionable in civilized society. Such indecencies are usually expressed by various euphemistic substitutes. The word bloody is replaced by adjectives and participles beginning with the same sound combinations: blooming, blasted, blessed, blamed. As soon as a substitute becomes generally known and accepted, its euphemistic quality disappears and a new synonym is created. Such words as insane, cemetery, lavatory, which were originally euphemisms to mad, graveyard and water-closet lost their euphemistic character and turned to direct nominations. Among euphemisms we find separate words (to expectorate instead of to spit), phraseological units (to breath one’s last instead of to die, to have the sun very strong in one’s eyes instead of to be drunk).

One can find in English some jocular words, euphemistic synonyms to an article of clothing – trousers: unexpressibles, unwhisperables, unspeakables, sit-upon’s, one-must-not-mention-em-s, indescribables.

Euphemisms which replace tabooed and offensive nominations are opposed to dysphemisms, rough, derogatory nominations.

It should be especially noted that subjects prominent in a certain linguistic community always attract a multitude of synonyms. In ancient Anglo-Saxon literature, such as “Beowulf” there were numerous synonyms for sea, hero, battle, woe, fight.

It goes without saying that modern reality presents a large variety of synonyms for quite different objects and notions: money, alcoholic drink, narcotics, sex, crime, various perversions in human relations.

Ex. 1. money, coin, specie, dough, bucks, beans, do-re-me, the chips, the needlful, wherewithal, greenbacks, spondulicks, billie, lettuce.

Ex. 2. amps. (amphetamines), antifreeze (heroin), angie (cocaine), Aunt Mary (marijuana), bammy (marijuana), basketballs (drugs), big-M (morphine), birdwood (marijuana), ashes (drugs), Barbie doll (drugs).

Ex. 3. batted (alcohol intoxicated), belcher (a beer drinker), beted (alcohol intoxicatted), binged (alcohol intoxicated), blue Johnnies (the term delirium tremens), boozy-woozy (alcohol intoxicated).

Ex. 4. dike (a lesbian; a homosexual woman), faggot (a homosexual), fairy (a homosexual), in drag (wearing the clothing of the opposite sex), pimp ( a man who solicits business for a prostitute), queen (a homosexual male), sex pot (one who flaunts one’s sexuality).

When a word acquires a transferred meaning its synonyms develop along parallel lines. This very active form of analogy is called radiation of synonymes.