Synonyms: Are Their Meanings the Same or Different?

Synonyms are words with the same meaning as another in the same language but often with different implications and associations.

In the following extract , in which a young woman rejects a proposal of marriage, the verbs like, admire, and love, all describe feelings of attractions, approbation, fondness:

“I have always liked you very much, I admire your talent, but, forgive me, - I could never love you as a wife should love her husband.”

(From Shivering Sands by V. Halt)

Yet, each of the three verbs, though they all describe more or less the same feeling of liking, describes it in its own way: “I like you, i.e. I have certain warm feelings towards you, but they are not strong enough for me to describe them as “love”, ” – so that like and love are in a way opposed to each other.

The duality of synonyms is, probably, their most confusing feature: they are somewhat the same, and yet they are most obviously different. Both aspects of their dual characteristics are essential for them to perform their function in speech, revealing different aspects, shades and variations of the same phenomenon.

• “Was she a pretty girl?

• I would certainly have called her attractive.” (Ibid)

The second speakers in this short dialogue does his best to choose the word which would describe the girl most precisely: she was good-looking, but pretty is probably too good a word for her, so that attractive is again in a way opposed to pretty (~ not pretty, only attractive), but this opposition is, at the same time, firmly fixed on the sameness of pretty and attractive: essentially they both describe a pleasant appearance.

There are some more extracts which confirm that synonyms add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group of synonyms may colour the whole text.

The first extract depicts a domestic quarrel. The infuriated husband shouts and glares at his wife, but “his glare suddenly softened into a gaze as he turned his eyes on the little girl” (i.e. he had been looking furiously at his wife, but when turned his eyes on the child, he looked at her with tenderness).

In the following extract an irritated producer is talking to an ambitious young actor:

“Think you can play Romeo? Romeo should smile, not grin, walk, not swagger, speak his lines, not mumble them.”

(Ibid.)

Here the second synonym in each pair is quite obviously and intentionally contrasted and opposed to the first: “… smile, not grin.” Yet, to grin means more or less the same as to smile, only, perhaps, denoting a broader and a rather foolish smile. In the same way to swagger means “to walk”, but to walk in a defiant or insolent manner. Mumbling is also a way of speaking, but of speaking indistinctly or unintelligibly.

Synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive means. The above examples convincingly demonstrate that the principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations.

All synonymic group have a “central” word of this kind whose meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group. This word is called the dominant synonym.

Here are examples of other dominant synonyms with their groups.

To surprise – to astonish – to amaze – to astound.

To shout – to yell – to bellow – to roar.

To shine – to flash – to blaze – to gleam – to glisten – to sparkle – to glitter – to shimmer – to glimmer.

To tremble – to shiver – to shudder – to shake.

To make – to produce – to create – to fabricate – to manufacture.

Angry – furious – enraged.

Fear – terror – horror.

Any dominant synonym is a typical is a typical basic-vocabulary word. Its meaning, which is broad and generalized, more or less “covers” the meanings of the rest of the synonyms, so that it may be substituted for any of them.

So, using to look instead of to glare, to stare, to peep, to peer we preserve the general sense of the utterance but lose a great deal in precision, expressiveness and colour.