In a gym or health club, you might find resistance training machines that use pulleys and weights to give you a workout by adding a pull or a force in the opposite direction, forcing your muscles to work harder. In today’s vocabulary exercise, we’ll give you a workout by reviewing words that have opposite meanings: antonyms. The word antonym comes from the Greek ant(i)- meaning ‘against’ and onoma meaning ‘name.’ The opposite of antonym is synonym, referring to words that mean the same thing.

Many antonyms are obvious: good/bad, up/down, black/white, etc. But often you’ll have to look at the context of a word in the sentence to determine what the correct antonym would be. Think of the word present. What is its opposite? Your first answer might be past, as in this example:

The play is set in the present day, but if you don’t know the past history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, you won’t understand the importance of the color orange on the stage.

But what about this sentence?

All of the students were present for the graduation ceremony.

In this case, the antonym for ‘present’ is absent. The SAT and GRE tests have a section devoted to synonyms and antonyms, and learning how to identify antonyms is a useful skill. Here are some of the more difficult words and their antonyms that frequently appear on these tests, along with examples of how the words might be used:

mendacious (lying) / truthful

Example: George’s mendacious statements about his co-workers led one of them to be fired, even though that employee was completely truthful when explaining the situation to the manager.

germane (relevant) / irrelevant

Example: The moderator tried to keep the discussion focused on topics that were germane to the issue, but Andrew continued to bring up irrelevant points and argue about them.

impecunious (poor) / affluent (rich)

Example: When she was growing up, her family was impecunious and often had to borrow money from friends; now that she has become successful and affluent, she always tries to help others in need.

deterrent (a preventive force) / incentive (a motivating force)

Example: An arsenal of nuclear weapons was once thought to be a deterrent against international conflict, but its seems instead to be an incentive for many other countries to develop their own nuclear armament.

proximity (nearness) / remoteness

Example: Helen enjoyed the remoteness of the mountain cabin, but its proximity to the Air Force training grounds meant that she was still bothered by the noise of airplanes.

judicious (careful) / imprudent (careless)

Example: The chef’s judicious use of subtle spices was not appreciated by George, who salted his food with an imprudent hand before even tasting it.

Judicious use of your time in vocabulary study will keep your brain in shape! Come back tomorrow for our wrap-up of this week’s word exercises.