Synonyms and their classification

English is very rich in synonyms. An elementary dictionary of synonyms contains over 8 000 synonyms. 

Synonymy is the coincidence in the essential meaning of words which usually preserve their differences in connotations and stylistic characteristics. 

Synonyms are two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts. These words are distinguished by different shades of meaning, connotations and stylistic features.

We divide synonyms into the following groups: 

  • ideographic (e.g. beautiful, fine, handsome, pretty, pleasant, different, various large, great, huge, tremendous, colossal)

  • stylistic (e.g.  doctor (official), doc (familiar examination (official), exam (coll.) to commence (official), to begin (coll.)) 

  • contextual (e.g. I’ll go to the shop and buy some bread/ I’ll go to the shop and get some bread )

  •  total (in linguistics the terms noun and substantive, functional affix, flexion and inflection are identical in meaning)  

  •  phraseological (e.g. the cornflower is so called because it grows in cornfields; some people call it bluebottle according to the shape and color of its petals) 



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