Synonym

How to spell synonym

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce synonym

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does synonym mean?

1. nounA word that means the same, or nearly the same, as another word.

Synonym in a sentence

• The editor asked for a shorter synonym to tighten the headline.

• "happy" is a common synonym for "glad".

Where does synonym come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek synonymon, which combined syn, meaning 'with' or 'together', and onoma, meaning 'name'. The literal sense was a name shared with another, or one name standing alongside another for the same thing. It passed into Latin as synonymum and reached English in the late 1400s, used from the start for a word that means the same as another. The same onoma root sits inside a family of relatives such as 'anonymous' (without a name), 'pseudonym' (a false name), and 'antonym' (an opposite name), and noticing that shared -onym ending is the surest way to remember the spelling. The trap is the unstressed middle vowel, which sounds like a faint 'uh' but is written with an o, giving syn-o-nym rather than syn-a-nym.

How the word is built

• syn- (together, same)
• -onym (from onoma: name)