know yer 'nyms, kids!

A quick guide to words
that end in 'nym'.

do the words mean the same thing but they're spelt and pronounced differently?
N
Y
that's a synonym (e.g. couch/sofa)
do they mean opposite things?
N
Y
that's an antonym (e.g. good/bad)
are they spelt the same and sound the same but have different meanings?
N
Y
that's a homonym (e.g. address: 'speak to' vs 'a location')
Are they spelt the same but sound different and have different meanings?
N
Y
that's a heteronym (e.g. tear: 'to rip' vs 'liquid from the eye')
is the word a more specific term for a more general category?
N
Y
that's a hyponym (e.g. 'spoon' is a hyponym of 'cutlery')
is the word a category that contains other words with more specific meanings?
N
Y
that's a hypernym (e.g. 'colour' is a hyponym of 'red'. this is the inverse relationship of 'hyponym' above)
is it made up from the initial letters of other words?
N
Y
that's an acronym (e.g. 'GIF' - Graphics Interchange Format)
or is it a word that came first, and then words for each letter were made to fit it?
N
Y
that's a backronym (e.g. 'posh' - 'Port Out, Starboard Home', 'SAD' - 'Seasonal Affective Disorder'; 'adidas' - 'All Day I Dream About Sport')
is it a substitute for something else?
N
Y
that's a metonym (e.g. 'Canberra' for when talking about the Australian Government)
is it a person, place, or thing after which something is named?
N
Y
that's an eponym (e.g. 'Franz Kafka' is the eponym of kafkaesque)
are they spelt the same but the meaning changes when capitalised?
N
Y
that's a capitonym (e.g. 'polish' meaning 'to clean' vs 'Polish' meaning 'from Poland')
is it the name of a place?
N
Y
that's a toponym
is it a made up name?
N
Y
that's a pseudonym (e.g. 'George Eliot', real name Mary Ann Evans)
is it a string of words that sound like other words?
N
Y
that's an oronym (e.g. 'ice cream' and 'I scream', 'mint spy' and 'mince pie')
is it a name used by foreigners for a place, group, or person, that isn't used by those who speak the language in question?
N
Y
that's an exonym (e.g. 'Germany' for 'Deutschland')
er, is it a person's name that's amusingly appropriate to their occupation?
N
Y
that's an aptronym (or sometimes called a euonym) e.g. 'Margaret Court' was a renowned tennis player (and a homophobe, but that's unrelated...)
um, is it a name for people from a particular place?
N
Y
that's a demonym e.g. 'Sydneysiders', 'Melburnian', 'Londoners', 'Spaniard' etc
oh, is it a word that has multiple meanings, two of which are opposite?
N
Y
that's a contronym (sometimes called an autantonym) e.g. 'clip' which can mean 'attach to', as well as 'cut off'
is it a word whose meaning you keep forgetting?
N
Y
that's a lapsonym (for me, the word is 'elide')
is it a word which was made into an acronym retrospectively?
N
Y
ah! that's a backronym e.g. 'Seasonal Affective Disorder' for SAD
hmmmm. is it an acronym that refers to itself?
N
Y
that's a recursive acronym e.g. ' PHP' for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (they're particularly popular in computing, and often retrospective... see backronym above)
* shrugs *