Words That Sound Unlike Their Meaning
The other day I was thinking about words that sound like the opposite of their definitions. It’s a pretty subjective exercise, but these are the three that occurred to me:
natty - It means ‘dapper’, but I always think of gnats. Plus, words that end in ‘ty’ tend to seem negative to me–’dirty’, ‘gritty’, ‘faulty’ and so forth.
quotidian - A very peculiar word to describe something that’s commonplace. The ‘q’ suggests that it ought to refer to something exotic.
solvent - As in, ‘having enough money’. I learned the other, more quotidian (heh) definition first, and I always imagined that it should mean that you didn’t have enough money–that it had dissolved.
In university, I was offered some (relatively-speaking) high-paying work by a prof in my department. He brought me into his office and asked me ‘how solvent are you these days?’ I didn’t know that usage at the time, so I replied ‘ah, you know, as solvent as the next guy’. I don’t know if I fooled him or not.
What words do you think sound the opposite of what they mean?
January 17th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
What words do you think sound the opposite of what they mean?
Inflammable, which actually mean flammable. This irritates me no end.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Spendthrift. It’s the “thrift” part of it that always throws me.
January 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
This one doesn’t *sound* like the opposite of what it means, but it is rather odd that the “abbreviation” is such a long word.
January 17th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
What about tasty? Or zesty? Or toasty? Or frosty? Or lusty?
Quotidian used to get me until I thought about “status quo.”
And the “inflame” at the beginning of inflammable!
But now I’m just being a pain in the ass.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Similar to quotidian is ubiquitous which means something you see everywhere (right now it is the ubiquitous smart car on the streets of Victoria
January 17th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Nonplussed is one that always gets me.
January 18th, 2007 at 10:35 am
“Tact”. It’s such a short, sharp word (and rhymes with “fact”) that makes me think of someone being direct or blunt, rather than coy or diplomatic.
January 18th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I don’t like the word diction. No real reason, but I don’t think it gets used correctly enough.
Also, Quotidian is derived from the French ‘quotidienne” for “daily”
January 20th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Fulsome would be my selection here. It sounds postive but actually means offensive, excessive, or gross.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:13 am
“Hagiography” is another one. Makes me think that it’s going to portray the subject as an evil old crone, when in fact it’s quite the opposite.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am
very nice