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etymology - How does a word come to have two completely opposite meanings?


Words like cleave and egregious have meanings that are completely opposite to other meanings of the same word. How did such a bizarre, confusing state of affairs ever develop?


I mean, I just can't work out how one and the same word could come to mean two distinct things that are completely opposite! Is it the same root? What did the root mean and how did it come to be used to mean the opposite?



Answer



If you start with wikipedia



An auto-antonym (sometimes spelled autantonym), or contranym (originally spelled contronym), is a word with a homograph (a word of the same spelling) that is also an antonym (a word with the opposite meaning). Variant names include antagonym, Janus word (after the Roman god), enantiodrome, and self-antonym. It is a word with multiple meanings, one of which is defined as the reverse of one of its other meanings.



it already puts you on the right path and mentions one of the word and one of the ways that can make such words



Some pairs of contronyms are true homographs, i.e., distinct words with different etymology which happen to have the same form. For instance cleave "separate" is from Old English clēofen, while cleave "adhere" is from Old English cleofian, which was pronounced differently. This is related to false friends, but false friends do not necessarily contradict.



In other words, for example literally, the two meanings developed from the overuse of the word as hyperbole.


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