English Synonyms and Antonyms

compendious? 3. What is the derivation and meaning of succinct? of terse? 4. What is the force of summary?
5. What is a sententious style? a pithy utterance?
EXAMPLES.
With all his lucidity of statement, Hamilton was not always ----.
In most cases it will be found that the Victorian idiom is clearer, but less ---- than the corresponding
Elizabethan idiom which it has supplanted.
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TESTIMONY (page 355).
QUESTIONS.
1. What is testimony? 2. How does it compare with evidence? 3. How does a deposition differ from an
affidavit?
EXAMPLES.
The word ----, in legal acceptation, includes all the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of
which is submitted to us for investigation, is established or disproved.
As to the fruits of Sodom, fair without, full of ashes within, I saw nothing of them, tho from the ---- we have,
something of this kind has been produced.
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TIME (page 356).
QUESTIONS.
1. To what do sequence and succession apply? 2. What does time denote? How is it conceived of with
reference to events? 3. How do duration and succession compare with time?
EXAMPLES.
Every event remembered is remembered as having happened in ---- past. This gives us the idea in the
concrete.... We can now, by a process of abstraction, separate the ---- from the event, and we have the abstract
idea of time.
The ---- of each earthquake is measured generally only by seconds, or even parts of a second.
It has been conjectured that our idea of ---- is founded upon the conscious ---- of sensations and ideas in our
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
457

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own minds.
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TOOL (page 358).
QUESTIONS.
1. What is a tool? 2. How does instrument compare in meaning with tool? 3. What special tools are ordinarily
called instruments? 4. What is an implement? 5. What is a utensil? In what special relations is the word used?
6. What is an appliance? How does appliance compare with tool? 7. What is a mechanism? 8. What is a
machine in the most general sense? in the technical and common use? 9. What is an apparatus? 10. Which of
these words have figurative use? 11. How are instrument and tool contrasted in figurative use?
EXAMPLES.
The time is coming when the ----s of husbandry shall supplant the weapons of war.
Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural ----s, to separate all the grains
of sand from all the grains of salt.
The pick, stone-saw, wedge, chisel, and other ----s were already in use when the pyramids were built.
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TOPIC (page 359).
QUESTIONS.
1. From what is topic derived, and with what meaning? 2. How is question used in a similar sense, and why?
3. Is the general subject or theme properly known as the topic? To what is that name more appropriately
given?
EXAMPLES.
My father ... always took care to start some ingenious or useful ---- of discourse, which might tend to improve
the minds of his children.
One of the most important rules in a deliberative assembly is, that every speaker shall speak to the ----.
The ---- of the Iliad is not the war of Troy, but the wrath of Achilles exhibited during and in connection with
the war of Troy.
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TRANSACT, TRANSACTION (page 360).
QUESTIONS.
1. How does transact differ from do? 2. How does transact differ from treat and negotiate? 3. How does
negotiate compare with treat? 4. How do transactions differ from proceedings?
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458

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EXAMPLES.
In the first Parliament of James the House of Commons refused for the first time to ---- business on a Sunday.
The treaty of peace that closed the war of 1812 had been already ---- before the battle of New Orleans was
fought.
Any direction of Christ or any direction or act of his apostles respecting the ---- of business in the church, is
binding upon us, unless such direction or act was grounded upon peculiar circumstances then existing.
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TRANSIENT (page 361).
QUESTIONS.
1. What is the derivation of transient and transitory? 2. How does transient differ in signification from