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This question was originally posted here: What is the term for a word that has come to mean the opposite of its orignal meaning?

I don't think it should have been marked as a duplicate: the "duplicate" question was asking about auto-antonyms/contronyms; however, this question refers to words that no longer hold their original meaning (I'm almost sure, necessarily via misuse). Whereas contronyms can mean two, opposite things, the type of words we're asking about no longer hold two meanings; they just mean one thing opposite to what they originally meant.

[This question might be better for meta. In which case, I'd appreciate if somebody with the requisite points posts it there].

I came across this question while wondering about the verb "Nonplus," or specifically about the passive participle, "Nonplussed." I've (mis)used the word, intending to mean "not at all affected or surprised," and have been understood, although it means the exact opposite.

So I'm re-opening this question!

Update to clarify some good points brought up in the comments to the initial post:

I'm referring to words whose actual meanings over time have changed to their initial meaning's opposites, not those whose connotations have switched from positive to negative or vice versa (as with "condescension," as Phil mentioned, or "innovation").

Another comment asked if there was an example of a word that lost its old meaning entirely. I think I found one: "hussy," according to this article, used to mean the mistress of a household, or housewife, which, to my mind, is an antonym for what it now means. A better example is the phrase "hoity-toity." See this link for more on Michael Quinion's blog. I would post more links, specifically, to issues 802, 803, 851, and 852 of his Newsletter for mentions of "hoi polloi," whose misuse to mean the upper classes is becoming more prevalent, but I don't have enough points to post more than two links...

Hannah Kelley
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shdrums9
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    For what it's worth: Danish has a word for this phenomenon. The Danish word is "pendulord", which literally translates as "pendulum word". I don't know if this term is known in English, but I think it describes the concept nicely. – oz1cz May 08 '16 at 15:48
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    Can you give an example of a word which now means solely (and not more commonly) the opposite of A (its original meaning) rather than now carrying both senses? – Edwin Ashworth May 08 '16 at 15:50
  • When was the last time condescension carried a virtuous, take-the-high-moral-ground connotation? The meaning of the act not having reversed so much as our society having reversed it's norms. However, I'm not feeling too sanguine that it ticks all the boxes. – Phil Sweet May 08 '16 at 17:26
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    @Edwin Ashworth - Wishes were once a way to curse the recipient of the wish. The wish (the name of the individual) was inscribed on a bit of lead and tossed into a wishing well so as to descend closer to Hades. There the wish could be better acted upon by the bottom dwellers. Now, wishes are thought to bring a positive outcome for the recipient. – Stan May 09 '16 at 07:54
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    A colleague suggested this might be a case of "semantic bleaching" – shdrums9 May 09 '16 at 16:32
  • @Stan 'I wish you were dead' proves that the unbenign sense is still used. 'Wish' is not an example. – Edwin Ashworth May 10 '16 at 22:08
  • @Edwin Ashworth - lead a horse to water… (with all due respect) – Stan May 10 '16 at 22:18
  • @Stan Perhaps you could explain your last comment's relevance. I'm still guessing that there are vanishingly few examples of words that have come to mean the opposite of what they once meant without retaining the original sense also. – Edwin Ashworth May 10 '16 at 22:24
  • @Edwin, what about the above examples? – shdrums9 May 10 '16 at 22:25
  • 'Hussy' is not an antonym of 'housewife' and 'hoity-toity' is not an antonym of 'romping'. And to quote M-W, 'When "nonplus" debuted in English in the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with "quandary" '. – Edwin Ashworth May 10 '16 at 22:35
  • @Edwin Ashworth - I tried to give an example which you chose to reject. I also agree that there are not (or shouldn't be) an increasing number of words that are ambiguous to communications. The original intent of a "wish" was perjorative to fulfil a negative outcome. Today, one makes a "wish" for a desirable outcome by and large. In fact, that you had to construct a full sentence to "prove" your point contradicts yourself in my estimation. I continue to maintain that casting a "wish" into a wishing-well has come to mean something opposite to the original intent. I will try to find more. Thanx. – Stan May 10 '16 at 22:35
  • @Stan '[This is the way this is used] by and large' and '... that no longer hold their original meaning' are the contradiction here. – Edwin Ashworth May 10 '16 at 22:39
  • @Edwin Ashworth - Oh, there's my bus. – Stan May 10 '16 at 22:52
  • Can you build an acceptable term like "contra-etymologism"? I found that there are many examples of words that have contrary/opposite definitions, but almost none have surrendered their "old" or "original" meanings completely. I was surprised to find that the innocent word "nice" almost meets the criteria of a complete reversal of meaning. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/nice – user22542 Feb 26 '19 at 17:13

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I can't believe I found this answer, but acceptable terms were coined in the 1960's- contranym and autantoym

The wikipedia article is title auto-antonym, which was coined at the same time.

Karlomanio
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Queen Anne when looking at the beautiful new St. Paul's Cathedral, called it "awful, artificial and amusing".

Awful meaning awe inspiring.
Artificial meaning artistic.
Amusing meaning thought provoking.

The linguistic term for what happened to these words is pejoration. It specifically refers to when a term moves from being positive to negative over time, eventually losing its positive meaning entirely.

In linguistics there have been many attempts to categorize semantic shift, which is a much broader concept than merely definitions changing to the opposite. The closest terms that really refer to opposites though are probably amelioration and pejoration.

chub500
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  • OP stresses 'this question refers to words that no longer hold their original meaning'. << Boy—Noun; Pejoration and Connotative Shift A male child Boy's emotional meaning went through a pejorative change. The literal meaning is a young male person, but over time, the connotative meaning has taken on a racist and disrespectful undertone. Semantic Changes 17 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4 th Edition, www.dictionary.com. (2000) Houghton Mifflin Company >> allows for ... – Edwin Ashworth Mar 17 '21 at 17:20
  • 'pejoration' to refer when negative senses develop while the original sense persists. Have you a reference using a stipulative definition narrowing to the 'wholesale change in the meaning of a word' rather than the 'development of an additional, pejorative sense' sense AHD champions? // 'Pejoration', 'amelioration', broadening' etc have already been covered on ELU. There is no need for a 'strictly opposite' meaning with pejoration or amelioration. As is shown by say 'artificial' and 'artistic', hardly antonyms. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 17 '21 at 17:26
  • I am not a linguist, but my understanding is the above example illustrates a linguistic phenomenon that occurs frequently, specifically a word shifting its meaning to a negative, almost opposite definition over time. In fact, there's a family of classifications all dealing with semantic shift covered briefly here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change – chub500 Mar 19 '21 at 03:12
  • There is a slight semantic difference between the linguistic sense of amelioration and pejoration and the colloquial one I believe. This article gives the linguistic sense of the term clearly: https://www.thoughtco.com/amelioration-word-meanings-1689082 – chub500 Mar 19 '21 at 03:31
  • Ullmann seems the only one mentioned in the Wikipedia article who suggests the terms 'amelioration' and 'pejoration', and the definitions are rise/loss of quality, not total reversal of sense. eg, to pinch one of Bloomfield's examples ... 'knight': "boy" → "nobleman". It is Blank who mentions a 'change of a word's sense and concept to the complementary opposite' class, but he labels this 'auto-antonymy'. And note McMahon's observation from the Nordquist article: 'Sometimes amelioration involves weakening of an originally strongly negative meaning.' -10 ➝ -3. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 19 '21 at 15:39
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@Karlomanio has answered the question. The word is autantonym or contranym.

I would like to add an example.

Egregious is a word which used to mean remarkably good. Now, it means truly bad.

jimm101
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Adarsha
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