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/sˈɪnənˌɪm/ Listen

noun

Synonym n. (pl. synonyms)

One of two or more words (commonly words of the same language) which are equivalents of each other; one of two or more words which have very nearly the same signification, and therefore may often be used interchangeably. See under Synonymous. (Written also synonyme) "All languages tend to clear themselves of synonyms as intellectual culture advances, the superfluous words being taken up and appropriated by new shades and combinations of thought evolved in the progress of society." "His name has thus become, throughout all civilized countries, a synonym for probity and philanthropy." "In popular literary acceptation, and as employed in special dictionaries of such words, synonyms are words sufficiently alike in general signification to be liable to be confounded, but yet so different in special definition as to require to be distinguished."

An incorrect or incorrectly applied scientific name, as a new name applied to a species or genus already properly named, or a specific name preoccupied by that of another species of the same genus; so used in the system of nomenclature (which see) in which the correct scientific names of certain natural groups (usually genera, species, and subspecies) are regarded as determined by priority.

One of two or more words corresponding in meaning but of different languages; a heteronym. (Rare)

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Etymology of 'Synonym'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Synonym" Quotes from Famous Books

... of his arrival was unexpected in the capital; worse still, as it appeared to the dismayed court, were the evidences that he would receive an enthusiastic reception from many influential elements of the population, who still considered the word "French" a synonym for "democratic." Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded the British ships in the Tagus, addressed a letter to Don John promising that England would never recognize a rule in Portugal hostile to the house of Braganza, and strongly urging him to embark the royal family for the Portuguese dominions in ...

— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... say that it is a branch of that founded by Rohi Das, a Chamar disciple of the great liberal and Vaishnavite reformer Ramanand, who flourished at the end of the fourteenth century. The Satnamis commonly call themselves Rohidasi as a synonym for their name, but there is no evidence that Rohi Das ever came to Chhattisgarh, and there is practically no doubt, as already pointed out, that Ghasi Das simply appropriated the doctrine of the Satnami sect of northern India. One of the precepts of ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India--Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... Stoicism and Epicureanism. The ideal set before each was nominally much the same. The Stoics aspired to the repression of all emotion, and the Epicureans to freedom from all disturbance; yet in the upshot the one has become a synonym of stubborn endurance, the other for unbridled licence. With Epicureanism we have nothing to do now; but it will be worth while to sketch the history and tenets of the Stoic sect. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was born ...

— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... last all beauty is but dust; That love and sorrow are the very same; That joy is only suffering's sweeter name; And sense is but the synonym of lust. ...

— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein

... and indeed everybody else, had refused to credit the Serbians of the kingdom, and the triumphs of the valiant Serbian peasant soldiers immediately imparted a heroic glow to the country whose very name, at any rate in central Europe, had become a byword, and a synonym for failure; Belgrade became the cynosure and the rallying-centre of the whole Serbo-Croatian race. But Vienna and Budapest could only lose courage and presence of mind for the moment, and the undeniable success of the Serbian arms merely ...

— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

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