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English Synonyms and Antonyms

<h3>HINDER.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>baffle,</td><td>clog,</td><td>foil,</td><td>obstruct,</td><td>retard,</td></tr> <tr><td>balk,</td><td>counteract,</td><td>frustrate,</td><td>oppose,</td><td>stay,</td></tr> <tr><td>bar,</td><td>delay,</td><td>hamper,</td><td>prevent,</td><td>stop,</td></tr> <tr><td>block,</td><td>embarrass,</td><td>impede,</td><td>resist,</td><td>thwart.</td></tr> <tr><td>check,</td><td>encumber,</td><td colspan="3">interrupt,</td></tr> </table> To hinder is to keep from action, progress, motion, or growth, or to make such action, progress, motion, or growth later in beginning or completion than it would otherwise have been. An action is prevented by anything that comes in before it to make it impossible; it is hindered by anything that keeps it from either beginning or ending so soon as it otherwise would, or as expected or intended. It is more common, however, to say that the start is delayed, the progress hindered. An action that is hindered does not take place at the appointed or appropriate time; that which is prevented does not take place at all; to hinder a thing long enough may amount to preventing it. A railroad-train may be hindered by a snow-storm from arriving on time; it may by special order be prevented from starting. To retard is simply to make slow by any means whatever. To obstruct is to hinder, or possibly to prevent advance or passage by putting something in the way; to oppose or resist is to hinder, or possibly to prevent by directly contrary or hostile action, resist being the stronger term and having more suggestion of physical force; obstructed roads hinder the march of an enemy, tho there may be no force strong enough to oppose it; one opposes a measure, a motion, an amendment, or the like; it is a criminal offense to resist an officer in the discharge of his duty; the physical system may resist the attack of disease or the action of a remedy. Compare CONQUER; IMPEDIMENT; OBSTRUCT. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> See synonyms for QUICKEN. <h4>Prepositions:</h4> Hinder one in his progress; from acting promptly; by opposition. <hr /> <h3>HISTORY.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>account,</td><td>biography,</td><td>muniment,</td><td>record,</td></tr> <tr><td>annals,</td><td>chronicle,</td><td>narration,</td><td>register,</td></tr> <tr><td>archives,</td><td>memoir,</td><td>narrative,</td><td>story.</td></tr> <tr><td>autobiography,</td><td>memorial,</td><td colspan="2">recital,</td></tr> </table> History is a systematic record of past events. Annals and chronicles relate events with little regard to their relative importance, and with complete subserviency to their succession in time. Annals are yearly records; chronicles follow the order of time. Both necessarily lack emphasis, selection, and perspective. Archives are public records, which may be annals, or chronicles, or deeds of property, etc. Memoirs generally record the lives of individuals or facts pertaining to individual lives. A biography is distinctively a written account of one person's life and actions; an autobiography is a biography written by the person whose life it records. Annals, archives, chronicles, biographies, and memoirs and other records furnish the materials of history. History recounts events with careful attention to their importance, their mutual relations, their causes and consequences, selecting and grouping events on the ground of interest or importance. History is usually applied to such an account of events affecting communities and nations, tho sometimes we speak of the history of a single eminent life. Compare RECORD. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> See synonyms for FICTION. <hr /> <h3>HOLY.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>blessed,</td><td>devoted,</td><td>hallowed,</td><td>saintly,</td></tr> <tr><td>consecrated,</td><td>divine,</td><td>sacred,</td><td>set apart.</td></tr> </table> Sacred is applied to that which is to be regarded as inviolable on any account, and so is not restricted to divine things; therefore in its lower applications it is less than holy. That which is sacred may be made so by institution, decree, or association; that which is holy is so by its own nature, possessing intrinsic moral purity, and, in the highest sense, absolute moral perfection. God is holy; his commands are sacred. Holy may be applied also to that which is hallowed; as, "the place whereon thou standest is holy ground," Ex. iii, 5. In such use holy is more than sacred, as if the very qualities of a spiritual or divine presence were imparted to the place or object. Divine has been used with great looseness, as applying to anything eminent or admirable, in the line either of goodness or of mere power, as to eloquence, music, etc., but there is a commendable tendency to restrict the word to its higher sense, as designating that which belongs to or is worthy of the Divine Being. Compare PERFECT; PURE. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>abominable,</td><td>cursed,</td><td>polluted,</td><td>unconsecrated,</td><td>unholy,</td><td>wicked,</td></tr> <tr><td>common,</td><td>impure,</td><td>secular,</td><td>unhallowed,</td><td>unsanctified,</td><td>worldly.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <h3>HOME.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>abode,</td><td>dwelling,</td><td>habitation,</td><td>hearthstone,</td><td>ingleside,</td></tr> <tr><td>domicil,</td><td>fireside,</td><td>hearth,</td><td>house,</td><td>residence.</td></tr> </table> Abode, dwelling, and habitation are used with little difference of meaning to denote the place where one habitually lives; abode and habitation belong to the poetic or elevated style. Even dwelling is not used in familiar speech; a person says "my house," "my home," or more formally "my residence." Home, from the Anglo-Saxon, denoting originally a dwelling, came to mean an endeared dwelling as the scene of domestic love and happy and cherished family life, a sense to which there is an increasing tendency to restrict the word—desirably so, since we have other words to denote the mere dwelling-place; we say "The wretched tenement could not be called home," or "The humble cabin was dear to him as the home of his childhood." <div class="poem"> Home's not merely four square walls, Tho with pictures hung and gilded; Home is where affection calls— Where its shrine the heart has builded. </div> Thus the word comes to signify any place of rest and peace, and especially heaven, as the soul's peaceful and eternal dwelling-place. <hr /> <h3>HONEST.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>candid,</td><td>frank,</td><td>ingenuous,</td><td>true,</td></tr> <tr><td>equitable,</td><td>genuine,</td><td>just,</td><td>trustworthy,</td></tr> <tr><td>fair,</td><td>good,</td><td>sincere,</td><td>trusty,</td></tr> <tr><td>faithful,</td><td>honorable,</td><td>straightforward,</td><td>upright.</td></tr> </table> One who is honest in the ordinary sense acts or is always disposed to act with careful regard for the rights of others, especially in matters of business or property; one who is honorable scrupulously observes the dictates of a personal honor that is higher than any demands of mercantile law or public opinion, and will do nothing unworthy of his own inherent nobility of soul. The honest man does not steal, cheat, or defraud; the honorable man will not take an unfair advantage that would be allowed him, or will make a sacrifice which no one could require of him, when his own sense of right demands it. One who is honest in the highest and fullest sense is scrupulously careful to adhere to all known truth and right even in thought. In this sense honest differs from honorable as having regard rather to absolute truth and right than to even the highest personal honor. Compare CANDID; JUSTICE. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>deceitful,</td><td>faithless,</td><td>hypocritical,</td><td>perfidious,</td><td>unfaithful,</td></tr> <tr><td>dishonest,</td><td>false,</td><td>lying,</td><td>traitorous,</td><td>unscrupulous,</td></tr> <tr><td>disingenuous,</td><td>fraudulent,</td><td>mendacious,</td><td>treacherous,</td><td>untrue.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <h3>HORIZONTAL.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>even,</td><td>flat,</td><td>level,</td><td>plain,</td><td>plane.</td></tr> </table> Horizontal signifies in the direction of or parallel to the horizon. For practical purposes level and horizontal are identical, tho level, as the more popular word, is more loosely used of that which has no especially noticeable elevations or inequalities; as, a level road. Flat, according to its derivation from the Anglo-Saxon flet, a floor, applies to a surface only, and, in the first and most usual sense, to a surface that is horizontal or level in all directions; a line may be level, a floor is flat; flat is also applied in a derived sense to any plane surface without irregularities or elevations, as a picture may be painted on the flat surface of a perpendicular wall. Plane applies only to a surface, and is used with more mathematical exactness than flat. The adjective plain, originally the same word as plane, is now rarely used except in the figurative senses, but the original sense appears in the noun, as we speak of "a wide plain." We speak of a horizontal line, a flat morass, a level road, a plain country, a plane surface (especially in the scientific sense). That which is level may not be even, and that which is even may not be level; a level road may be very rough; a slope may be even. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>broken,</td><td>inclined,</td><td>rolling,</td><td>rugged,</td><td>sloping,</td></tr> <tr><td>hilly,</td><td>irregular,</td><td>rough,</td><td>slanting,</td><td>uneven.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <h3>HUMANE.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>benevolent,</td><td>compassionate,</td><td>human,</td><td>pitying,</td></tr> <tr><td>benignant,</td><td>forgiving,</td><td>kind,</td><td>sympathetic,</td></tr> <tr><td>charitable,</td><td>gentle,</td><td>kind-hearted,</td><td>tender,</td></tr> <tr><td>clement,</td><td>gracious,</td><td>merciful,</td><td>tender-hearted.</td></tr> </table> Human denotes what pertains to mankind, with no suggestion as to its being good or evil; as, the human race; human qualities; we speak of human achievements, virtues, or excellences, human follies, vices, or crimes. Humane denotes what may rightly be expected of mankind at its best in the treatment of sentient beings; a humane enterprise or endeavor is one that is intended to prevent or relieve suffering. The humane man will not needlessly inflict pain upon the meanest thing that lives; a merciful man is disposed to withhold or mitigate the suffering even of the guilty. The compassionate man sympathizes with and desires to relieve actual suffering, while one who is humane would forestall and prevent the suffering which he sees to be possible. Compare MERCY; PITIFUL; PITY. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> See synonyms for BARBAROUS. <hr /> <h3>HUNT.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>chase,</td><td>hunting,</td><td>inquisition,</td><td>pursuit,</td><td>search.</td></tr> </table> A hunt may be either the act of pursuing or the act of seeking, or a combination of the two. A chase or pursuit is after that which is fleeing or departing; a search is for that which is hidden; a hunt may be for that which is either hidden or fleeing; a search is a minute and careful seeking, and is especially applied to a locality; we make a search of or through a house, for an object, in which connection it would be colloquial to say a hunt. Hunt never quite loses its association with field-sports, where it includes both search and chase; the search till the game is hunted out, and the chase till it is hunted down. Figuratively, we speak of literary pursuits, or of the pursuit of knowledge; a search for reasons; the chase of fame or honor; hunt, in figurative use, inclines to the unfavorable sense of inquisition, but with more of dash and aggressiveness; as, a hunt for heresy. <hr /> <h3>HYPOCRISY.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>affectation,</td><td>formalism,</td><td>pretense,</td><td>sanctimony,</td></tr> <tr><td>cant,</td><td>pharisaism,</td><td>sanctimoniousness,</td><td>sham.</td></tr> <tr><td>dissimulation,</td><td colspan="3">pietism,</td></tr> </table> Pretense (L. prætendo) primarily signifies the holding something forward as having certain rights or claims, whether truly or falsely; in the good sense, it is now rarely used except with a negative; as, there can be no pretense that this is due; a false pretense implies the possibility of a true pretense; but, alone and unlimited, pretense commonly signifies the offering of something for what it is not. Hypocrisy is the false pretense of moral excellence, either as a cover for actual wrong, or for the sake of the credit and advantage attaching to virtue. Cant (L. cantus, a song), primarily the singsong iteration of the language of any party, school, or sect, denotes the mechanical and pretentious use of religious phraseology, without corresponding feeling or character; sanctimoniousness is the assumption of a saintly manner without a saintly character. As cant is hypocrisy in utterance, so sanctimoniousness is hypocrisy in appearance, as in looks, tones, etc. Pietism, originally a word of good import, is now chiefly used for an unregulated emotionalism; formalism is an exaggerated devotion to forms, rites, and ceremonies, without corresponding earnestness of heart; sham (identical in origin with shame) is a trick or device that puts one to shame, or that shamefully disappoints expectation or falsifies appearance. Affectation is in matters of intellect, taste, etc., much what hypocrisy is in morals and religion; affectation might be termed petty hypocrisy. Compare DECEPTION. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>candor,</td><td>genuineness,</td><td>ingenuousness,</td><td>sincerity,</td><td>truth,</td></tr> <tr><td>frankness,</td><td>honesty,</td><td>openness,</td><td>transparency,</td><td>truthfulness.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <h3>HYPOCRITE.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>cheat,</td><td>deceiver,</td><td>dissembler,</td><td>impostor,</td><td>pretender.</td></tr> </table> A hypocrite (Gr. hypokrites, one who answers on the stage, an actor, especially a mimic actor) is one who acts a false part, or assumes a character other than the real. Deceiver is the most comprehensive term, including all the other words of the group. The deceiver seeks to give false impressions of any matter where he has an end to gain; the dissembler or hypocrite seeks to give false impressions in regard to himself. The dissembler is content if he can keep some base conduct or evil purpose from being discovered; the hypocrite seeks not merely to cover his vices, but to gain credit for virtue. The cheat and impostor endeavor to make something out of those they may deceive. The cheat is the inferior and more mercenary, as the thimble-rig gambler; the impostor may aspire to a fortune or a throne. Compare HYPOCRISY. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> The antonyms of hypocrite are to be found only in phrases embodying the adjectives candid, honest, ingenuous, sincere, true, etc. <hr /> <h3>HYPOTHESIS.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>conjecture,</td><td>scheme,</td><td>supposition,</td><td>system,</td></tr> <tr><td>guess,</td><td>speculation,</td><td>surmise,</td><td>theory.</td></tr> </table> A hypothesis is a statement of what is deemed possibly true, assumed and reasoned upon as if certainly true, with a view of reaching truth not yet surely known; especially, in the sciences, a hypothesis is a comprehensive tentative explanation of certain phenomena, which is meant to include all other facts of the same class, and which is assumed as true till there has been opportunity to bring all related facts into comparison; if the hypothesis explains all the facts, it is regarded as verified; till then it is regarded as a working hypothesis, that is, one that may answer for present practical purposes. A hypothesis may be termed a comprehensive guess. A guess is a swift conclusion from data directly at hand, and held as probable or tentative, while one confessedly lacks material for absolute certainty. A conjecture is more methodical than a guess, while a supposition is still slower and more settled; a conjecture, like a guess, is preliminary and tentative; a supposition is more nearly final; a surmise is more floating and visionary, and often sinister; as, a surmise that a stranger may be a pickpocket. Theory is used of the mental coordination of facts and principles, that may or may not prove correct; a machine may be perfect in theory, but useless in fact. Scheme may be used as nearly equivalent to theory, but is more frequently applied to proposed action, and in the sense of a somewhat visionary plan. A speculation may be wholly of the brain, resting upon no facts worthy of consideration; system is the highest of these terms, having most of assurance and fixity; a system unites many facts, phenomena, or doctrines into an orderly and consistent whole; we speak of a system of theology, of the Copernican system of the universe. Compare SYSTEM. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>certainty,</td><td>demonstration,</td><td>discovery,</td><td>evidence,</td><td>fact,</td><td>proof.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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