I learned a new word today: contranym. Spell-checker wants to change it to countryman, but, no, contranym. It's when one word means two opposite things.
I was listening to a PODCAST about how the English language is constantly in flux - regarding spelling, punctuation and meaning. The speaker talked about the growing way in which the word 'literally' actually means 'figuratively'...as in "He literally had no leg to stand on." The OED says of this use: Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally.
Two other examples of contranyms are sanction (permit or penalize) and cleave (separate or adhere). So how do we interpret a sentence like: "He sanctioned their cleaving."?
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