Just a curious feature, stumbled upon it by chance:
You’ve probably never thought about it, but there are words that denote opposite meanings. Linguists call this enantiosemy.
* priceless — “having no price at all” and “having a very high price”
* literally — “exactly, in the direct sense” and “figuratively speaking”
* to eliminate — “to destroy” (eliminate cockroaches) and “to create” (breed a new variety).
* to tie up — “to start” and “to end” (“start a relationship” / “quit alcohol”)
* to launch (to neglect or conversely to give life to something)
* to treat — “to cure” and “to worsen the condition due to treatment” (“doctors treated the wound” / “doctors treated to death”).
* to lend — “to borrow” and “to loan”.
* to bypass — “to walk around, not entering; to pass by” and “to go inside, visiting all possible places” (“the squad bypassed the village, not wanting to engage in battle” / “the squad went around the village looking for enemies”).
* to pass — “to move on transport from point A to point B” and “in the process of moving from point A to point B, to miss point B and go further.”
* to listen — “to listen attentively, to hear” and “not to hear clearly, to forget what was heard”;
* to overlook — “to inspect carefully” and “not to notice something due to inattentiveness”.
* to share [experiences, love <-> an apple, a carcass]
* to review and to miss, to listen [to a lecture <-> the most interesting part]
* to depart [from severe illness <-> to the next world]
* sanction — “to permit” and “to prohibit”.
Oh, here’s another interesting one. “Cockroaches have infested” and “cockroaches divorced.” Clearly different meanings, still funny and almost the same, although it sounds like antonyms 🙂
In English, there are also
* Oversight and Overlook can mean both “accidentally missing something” and “watching carefully” (essentially, the same batch as the Russian ‘to overlook’)
* Sanction can mean both “approve” and “penalize”.
* “to table smth” can mean “to discuss at a meeting” or “to postpone for better times”
And in English, the word shit can mean both super and complete trash.
In French and Chinese, the words for “to rent out” and “to rent” are the same (louer / 租)
Interestingly, in Hindi कल means both “yesterday” and “tomorrow,” and the Korean 앞(ap) can mean both “future” and “past” 🙂
Also, there are phrases — “The kettle takes a long time to boil” and “The kettle does not boil for a long time” mean the same thing.
And we also say, what a weird habit of Americans to say “how’s it going” / “how are you” basically as a hello. But then in the same Russian language, when we say goodbye, we somehow say “Let’s go!”.
And when we drop something, we say “Quietly” or “Carefully”.
We also say “hands haven’t gotten around to watching it.” And “grab your legs and go” — what is that even?
And in the Russian language, the words for candy (lollipop) and icicle are mixed up.
There are many such oddities in Russian that can be quite difficult to explain to a foreigner. For example, how do you explain that “goat” (koza) and “billy goat” (kozel) are the same animal, but different genders, while “wasp” (osa) and “donkey” (osel) are completely different?
Or why do “eat like a pig” and “get drunk like a pig” denote completely different things? If the first one is about overeating, then the second case does not seem to involve eating at all.
Or, how do you explain to a foreigner that “very smart” is not always a compliment, “smart very” is a mockery, and “too smart” is a threat?..
Go figure explaining to a foreigner why we can say “There he is!”
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 