Antonyms & Opposites

In this lesson, you will learn about antonyms — words that have opposite meanings. The 11+ exam frequently tests your knowledge of antonyms, so understanding the different types and how to form them is essential.

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What Is an Antonym?

An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word.

• hot ↔ cold
• big ↔ small
• happy ↔ sad
• light ↔ dark
• fast ↔ slow

Knowing antonyms doubles your vocabulary — every time you learn a word and its opposite, you have learned two words!

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Three Types of Antonyms

Not all opposites work in the same way. There are three main types:

1. Gradable Antonyms

These are opposites on a scale — there are degrees between them.

Word	Opposite	The scale between
hot	cold	hot → warm → lukewarm → cool → cold
big	small	enormous → big → medium → small → tiny
old	young	ancient → old → middle-aged → young → newborn
fast	slow	lightning-fast → fast → moderate → slow → crawling
happy	sad	ecstatic → happy → content → unhappy → miserable

With gradable antonyms, something can be more or less of each quality. A room can be "quite hot" or "a bit cold."

2. Complementary Antonyms

These are absolute opposites — there is nothing in between. Something is either one or the other.

Word	Opposite
alive	dead
true	false
open	closed
present	absent
on	off
male	female
single	married
pass	fail

There is no "slightly alive" or "a bit dead" — it is one or the other!

3. Relational Antonyms

These are pairs of words that describe a relationship — one cannot exist without the other.

Word	Opposite
buy	sell
give	receive
teacher	student
parent	child
above	below
before	after
lend	borrow
husband	wife
question	answer
employer	employee

If someone is buying, someone else must be selling. These opposites depend on each other.

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Using Prefixes to Create Antonyms

One of the most common ways to form an antonym is to add a prefix that means "not." You learned about these in the Prefixes lesson, and here they are applied specifically to making opposites.

The prefix "un-"

Word	Antonym
happy	unhappy
kind	unkind
fair	unfair
certain	uncertain
comfortable	uncomfortable
aware	unaware
fortunate	unfortunate
usual	unusual

The prefix "dis-"

Word	Antonym
agree	disagree
appear	disappear
honest	dishonest
obey	disobey
like	dislike
connect	disconnect
approve	disapprove
trust	distrust

The prefix "in-" (and its variants im-, il-, ir-)