English Synonyms and Antonyms

Abode, dwelling, and habitation are used with little difference of meaning to denote the place where one
habitually lives; abode and habitation belong to the poetic or elevated style. Even dwelling is not used in
familiar speech; a person says "my house," "my home," or more formally "my residence." Home, from the
Anglo-Saxon, denoting originally a dwelling, came to mean an endeared dwelling as the scene of domestic
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
166

---

love and happy and cherished family life, a sense to which there is an increasing tendency to restrict the
word--desirably so, since we have other words to denote the mere dwelling-place; we say "The wretched
tenement could not be called home," or "The humble cabin was dear to him as the home of his childhood."
Home's not merely four square walls, Tho with pictures hung and gilded; Home is where affection calls--
Where its shrine the heart has builded.
Thus the word comes to signify any place of rest and peace, and especially heaven, as the soul's peaceful and
eternal dwelling-place.
* * * * *
HONEST.
Synonyms:
candid, frank, ingenuous, true, equitable, genuine, just, trustworthy, fair, good, sincere, trusty, faithful,
honorable, straightforward, upright.
One who is honest in the ordinary sense acts or is always disposed to act with careful regard for the rights of
others, especially in matters of business or property; one who is honorable scrupulously observes the dictates
of a personal honor that is higher than any demands of mercantile law or public opinion, and will do nothing
unworthy of his own inherent nobility of soul. The honest man does not steal, cheat, or defraud; the honorable
man will not take an unfair advantage that would be allowed him, or will make a sacrifice which no one could
require of him, when his own sense of right demands it. One who is honest in the highest and fullest sense is
scrupulously careful to adhere to all known truth and right even in thought. In this sense honest differs from
honorable as having regard rather to absolute truth and right than to even the highest personal honor. Compare
CANDID; JUSTICE.
Antonyms:
deceitful, faithless, hypocritical, perfidious, unfaithful, dishonest, false, lying, traitorous, unscrupulous,
disingenuous, fraudulent, mendacious, treacherous, untrue.
* * * * *
HORIZONTAL.
Synonyms:
even, flat, level, plain, plane.
Horizontal signifies in the direction of or parallel to the horizon. For practical purposes level and horizontal
are identical, tho level, as the more popular word, is more loosely used of that which has no especially
noticeable elevations or inequalities; as, a level road. Flat, according to its derivation from the Anglo-Saxon
flet, a floor, applies to a surface only, and, in the first and most usual sense, to a surface that is horizontal or
level in all directions; a line may be level, a floor is flat; flat is also applied in a derived sense to any plane
surface without irregularities or elevations, as a picture may be painted on the flat surface of a perpendicular
wall. Plane applies only to a surface, and is used with more mathematical exactness than flat. The adjective
plain, originally the same word as plane, is now rarely used except in the figurative senses, but the original
sense appears in the noun, as we speak of "a wide plain." We speak of a horizontal line, a flat morass, a level
road, a plain country, a plane surface (especially in the scientific sense). That which is level may not be even,
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
167

---

and that which is even may not be level; a level road may be very rough; a slope may be even.
Antonyms:
broken, inclined, rolling, rugged, sloping, hilly, irregular, rough, slanting, uneven.
* * * * *
HUMANE.
Synonyms:
benevolent, compassionate, human, pitying, benignant, forgiving, kind, sympathetic, charitable, gentle,
kind-hearted, tender, clement, gracious, merciful, tender-hearted.