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English Synonyms and Antonyms

<h3>SEND.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>cast,</td><td>despatch,</td><td>emit,</td><td>impel,</td><td>propel,</td></tr> <tr><td>dart,</td><td>discharge,</td><td>fling,</td><td>lance,</td><td>sling,</td></tr> <tr><td>delegate,</td><td>dismiss,</td><td>forward,</td><td>launch,</td><td>throw,</td></tr> <tr><td>depute,</td><td>drive,</td><td>hurl,</td><td>project,</td><td>transmit.</td></tr> </table> To send is to cause to go or pass from one place to another, and always in fact or thought away from the agent or agency that controls the act. Send in its most common use involves personal agency without personal presence; according to the adage, "If you want your business done, go; if not, send;" one sends a letter or a bullet, a messenger or a message. In all the derived uses this same idea controls; if one sends a ball into his own heart, the action is away from the directing hand, and he is viewed as the passive recipient of his own act; it is with an approach to personification that we speak of the bow sending the arrow, or the gun the shot. To despatch is to send hastily or very promptly, ordinarily with a destination in view; to dismiss is to send away from oneself without reference to a destination; as, to dismiss a clerk, an application, or an annoying subject. To discharge is to send away so as to relieve a person or thing of a load; we discharge a gun or discharge the contents; as applied to persons, discharge is a harsher term than dismiss. To emit is to send forth from within, with no reference to a destination; as, the sun emits light and heat. Transmit, from the Latin, is a dignified term, often less vigorous than the Saxon send, but preferable at times in literary or scientific use; as, to transmit the crown, or the feud, from generation to generation; to transmit a charge of electricity. Transmit fixes the attention more on the intervening agency, as send does upon the points of departure and destination. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>bring,</td><td>convey,</td><td>give,</td><td>hold,</td><td>receive,</td></tr> <tr><td>carry,</td><td>get,</td><td>hand,</td><td>keep,</td><td>retain.</td></tr> </table> <h4>Prepositions:</h4> To send from the hand to or toward (rarely at) a mark; send to a friend by a messenger or by mail; send a person into banishment; send a shell among the enemy. <hr /> <h3>SENSATION.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>emotion,</td><td>feeling,</td><td>perception,</td><td>sense.</td></tr> </table> Sensation is the mind's consciousness due to a bodily affection, as of heat or cold; perception is the cognition of some external object which is the cause or occasion of the sensation; the sensation of heat may be connected with the perception of a fire. While sensations are connected with the body, emotions, as joy, grief, etc., are wholly of the mind. "As the most of them [the sensations] are positively agreeable or the opposite, they are nearly akin to those emotions, as hope or terror, or those passions, as anger and envy, which are acknowledged by all to belong exclusively to the spirit, and to involve no relation whatever to matter or the bodily organism. Such feelings are not infrequently styled sensations, though improperly." Porter Human Intellect § 112, p. 128. [S. '90.] Feeling is a general term popularly denoting what is felt, whether through the body or by the mind alone, and includes both sensation and emotion. A sense is an organ or faculty of sensation or of perception. <hr /> <h3>SENSIBILITY.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>feeling,</td><td>impressibility,</td><td>sensitiveness,</td><td>susceptibility.</td></tr> </table> Sensibility in the philosophical sense, denotes the capacity of emotion or feeling, as distinguished from the intellect and the will. (Compare synonyms for SENSATION.) In popular use sensibility denotes sometimes capacity of feeling of any kind; as, sensibility to heat or cold; sometimes, a peculiar readiness to be the subject of feeling, especially of the higher feelings; as, the sensibility of the artist or the poet; a person of great or fine sensibility. Sensitiveness denotes an especial delicacy of sensibility, ready to be excited by the slightest cause, as displayed, for instance, in the "sensitive-plant." Susceptibility is rather a capacity to take up, receive, and, as it were, to contain feeling, so that a person of great susceptibility is capable of being not only readily but deeply moved; sensitiveness is more superficial, susceptibility more pervading. Thus, in physics, the sensitiveness of a magnetic needle is the ease with which it may be deflected, as by another magnet; its susceptibility is the degree to which it can be magnetized by a given magnetic force or the amount of magnetism it will hold. So a person of great sensitiveness is quickly and keenly affected by any external influence, as by music, pathos, or ridicule, while a person of great susceptibility is not only touched, but moved to his inmost soul. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>coldness,</td><td>deadness,</td><td>hardness,</td><td>insensibility,</td><td>numbness,</td><td>unconsciousness.</td></tr> </table> <h4>Prepositions:</h4> The sensibility of the organism to atmospheric changes. <hr /> <h3>SEVERE.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>austere,</td><td>inflexible,</td><td>rigorous,</td><td>uncompromising,</td></tr> <tr><td>hard,</td><td>morose,</td><td>stern,</td><td>unmitigated,</td></tr> <tr><td>harsh,</td><td>relentless,</td><td>stiff,</td><td>unrelenting,</td></tr> <tr><td>inexorable,</td><td>rigid,</td><td>strict,</td><td>unyielding.</td></tr> </table> That is severe which is devoid of all softness, mildness, tenderness, indulgence or levity, or (in literature and art) devoid of unnecessary ornament, amplification, or embellishment of any kind; as, a severe style; as said of anything painful, severe signifies such as heavily taxes endurance or resisting power; as, a severe pain, fever, or winter. Rigid signifies primarily stiff, resisting any effort to change its shape; a corpse is said to be rigid in death; hence, in metaphorical sense, a rigid person or character is one that resists all efforts to change the will or course of conduct; a rigid rule or statement is one that admits of no deviation. Rigorous is nearly akin to rigid, but is a stronger word, having reference to action or active qualities, as rigid does to state or character; a rigid rule may be rigorously enforced. Strict (L. stringo, bind) signifies bound or stretched tight, tense, strenuously exact. Stern unites harshness and authority with strictness or severity; stern, as said even of inanimate objects, suggests something authoritative or forbidding. Austere signifies severely simple or temperate, strict in self-restraint or discipline, and similarly unrelenting toward others. We speak of austere morality, rigid rules, rigorous discipline, stern commands, severe punishment, harsh speech or a harsh voice, hard requirements, strict injunctions, and strict obedience. Strict discipline holds one exactly and unflinchingly to the rule; rigorous discipline punishes severely any infraction of it. The austere character is seldom lovely, but it is always strong and may be grand, commanding, and estimable. <h4>Antonyms:</h4> <table class="tba" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>affable,</td><td>easy,</td><td>gentle,</td><td>lenient,</td><td>pliable,</td><td>sweet,</td><td>tractable,</td></tr> <tr><td>bland,</td><td>genial,</td><td>indulgent,</td><td>mild,</td><td>soft,</td><td>tender,</td><td>yielding.</td></tr> </table> <hr /> <h3>SHAKE.</h3> <h4>Synonyms:</h4> <table class="tbs" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> <tr><td>agitate,</td><td>jar,</td><td>quake,</td><td>shiver,</td><td>totter,</td></tr> <tr><td>brandish,</td><td>joggle,</td><td>quaver,</td><td>shudder,</td><td>tremble,</td></tr> <tr><td>flap,</td><td>jolt,</td><td>quiver,</td><td>sway,</td><td>vibrate,</td></tr> <tr><td>fluctuate,</td><td>jounce,</td><td>reel,</td><td>swing,</td><td>wave,</td></tr> <tr><td>flutter,</td><td>oscillate,</td><td>rock,</td><td>thrill,</td><td>waver.</td></tr> </table> A thing is shaken which is subjected to short and abruptly checked movements, as forward and backward, up and down, from side to side, etc. A tree is "shaken with a mighty wind;" a man slowly shakes his head. A thing rocks that is sustained from below; it swings if suspended from above, as a pendulum, or pivoted at the side, as a crane or a bridge-draw; to oscillate is to swing with a smooth and regular returning motion; a vibrating motion may be tremulous or jarring. The pendulum of a clock may be said to swing, vibrate, or oscillate; a steel bridge vibrates under the passage of a heavy train; the term vibrate is also applied to molecular movements. Jolting is a lifting from and letting down suddenly upon an unyielding surface; as, a carriage jolts over a rough road. A jarring motion is abruptly and very rapidly repeated through an exceedingly limited space; the jolting of the carriage jars the windows. Rattling refers directly to the sound produced by shaking. To joggle is to shake slightly; as, a passing touch joggles the desk on which one is writing. A thing trembles that shakes perceptibly and with an appearance of uncertainty and instability, as a person under the influence of fear; a thing shivers when all its particles are stirred with a slight but pervading tremulous motion, as a human body under the influence of cold; shuddering is a more pronounced movement of a similar kind, in human beings often the effect of emotional or moral recoil; hence, the word is applied by extension to such feelings even when they have no such outward manifestation; as, one says, "I shudder at the thought." To quiver is to have slight and often spasmodic contractile motions, as the flesh under the surgeon's knife. Thrill is applied to a pervasive movement felt rather than seen; as, the nerves thrill with delight; quiver is similarly used, but suggests somewhat more of outward manifestation. To agitate in its literal use is nearly the same as to shake, tho we speak of the sea as agitated when we could not say it is shaken; the Latin agitate is preferred in scientific or technical use to the Saxon shake, and especially as applied to the action of mechanical contrivances; in the metaphorical use agitate is more transitory and superficial, shake more fundamental and enduring; a person's feelings are agitated by distressing news; his courage, his faith, his credit, or his testimony is shaken. Sway applies to the movement of a body suspended from above or not firmly sustained from below, and the motion of which is less pronounced than swinging, smoother than vibrating, and not necessarily constant as oscillating; as, the swaying of a reed in the wind. Sway used transitively especially applies to motions of grace or dignity; brandish denotes a threatening or hostile motion; a monarch sways the scepter; the ruffian brandishes a club. To reel or totter always implies liability to fall; reeling is more violent than swaying, tottering more irregular; a drunken man reels; we speak of the tottering step of age or infancy. An extended mass which seems to lack solidity or cohesion is said to quake; as, a quaking bog. Quaver is applied almost exclusively to tremulous sounds of the human voice. Flap, flutter, and fluctuate refer to wave-like movements, flap generally to such as produce a sharp sound; a cock flaps his wings; flutter applies to a less pronounced and more irregular motion; a captive bird or a feeble pulse flutters. Compare FLUCTUATE. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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