What are synonyms and antonyms?

Part ofEnglish and LiteracyUnderstanding texts

Using synonyms and antonyms effectively.

Synonyms are words with the same or similar meaning:

  • Words such as happy, cheerful and merry.
  • Words such as sad, miserable and heartbroken.

Antonyms are words with opposite meanings:

  • Words such as angry and peaceful.
  • Words such as funny and serious.

To find synonyms and antonyms for words, you can use a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a book which lists groups of words with a similar meaning (synonyms), and also their opposite (antonyms).

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