In the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” William Wordsworth describes an afternoon walk that was particularly special for him. Examples of Synonyms in Literature Example 1Īs mentioned, poetry probably wouldn’t exist without synonyms. This helps writers say what they mean, and how they mean it.
So, an author chooses a synonym based on its positive, negative, or neutral connotation. For example, you might say “the soup’s aroma was in the air,” which makes it sound delicious, but “the soup’s odor was in the air” makes it sound terrible. The way words are chosen and used is often what defines a piece of literature so, synonyms allow all authors to develop their own styles and voices when creating their works. Another main reason we use synonyms is because words often share the same meanings but have different connotations (a word’s implied meaning). Imagine what writing, reading, and speaking would be like if there were only one word for everything! Language would be boring, and would have no room for creativity. In fact, you could argue that poetry wouldn’t even exist without synonyms-one of the main reasons we use them is to be descriptive, creative, and expressive, and poetry relies on those three things. They have a huge, central role in word choice for both prose and poetry. Synonyms make language more interesting, more meaningful, and more relevant. Since word choice is everything in language (probably the most crucial part!), the importance of synonyms is beyond measure. Words like “rapidly,” “gobbling,” “awful,” and “terrible” are much more descriptive than “quickly,” “eating,” and “bad”-they have the same meanings as Sentence 1, but stronger connotations. The youngster was speedily consuming a freezing ice cream cone, which gave him a terrible headache.Īs you can see, the three sentences above share the same situation, but, Sentences 2 and 3 paint a better picture because they use synonyms for some of the dull words in Sentence 1.
AntonymĪn antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. You can find synonyms in a synonym dictionary or thesaurus. Here are some more examples of synonyms: synonyms For example, "blow up" and "explode" have the same meaning, but "blow up" is informal (used more in speech) and "explode" is more formal (used more in writing and careful speech). Note that a synonym may share an identical meaning with another word, but the two words are not necessarily interchangeable.