English Synonyms and Antonyms

Alert, ready, and wide-awake refer to a watchful promptness for action. Ready suggests thoughtful
preparation; the wandering Indian is alert, the trained soldier is ready. Ready expresses more life and vigor
than prepared. The gun is prepared; the man is ready. Prompt expresses readiness for appointment or demand
at the required moment. The good general is ready for emergencies, alert to perceive opportunity or peril,
prompt to seize occasion. The sense of brisk, nimble is the secondary and now less common signification of
alert. Compare ACTIVE; ALIVE; NIMBLE; VIGILANT.
Antonyms:
drowsy, dull, heavy, inactive, slow, sluggish, stupid.
* * * * *
ALIEN, a.
Synonyms:
conflicting, distant, inappropriate, strange, contradictory, foreign, irrelevant, unconnected, contrary, hostile,
opposed, unlike. contrasted, impertinent, remote,
Foreign refers to difference of birth, alien to difference of allegiance. In their figurative use, that is foreign
which is remote, unlike, or unconnected; that is alien which is conflicting, hostile, or opposed. Impertinent and
irrelevant matters can not claim consideration in a certain connection; inappropriate matters could not
properly be considered. Compare ALIEN, n.; CONTRAST, v.
Antonyms:
akin, apropos, germane, proper, appropriate, essential, pertinent, relevant.
Prepositions:
Such a purpose was alien to (or from) my thought: to preferable.
* * * * *
ALIEN, n.
Synonyms:
foreigner, stranger.
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
29

---

A naturalized citizen is not an alien, though a foreigner by birth, and perhaps a stranger in the place where he
resides. A person of foreign birth not naturalized is an alien, though he may have been resident in the country
a large part of a lifetime, and ceased to be a stranger to its people or institutions. He is an alien in one country
if his allegiance is to another. The people of any country still residing in their own land are, strictly speaking,
foreigners to the people of all other countries, rather than aliens; but alien and foreigner are often used
synonymously.
Antonyms:
citizen, fellow-countryman, native-born inhabitant, countryman, native, naturalized person.
Prepositions:
Aliens to (more rarely from) our nation and laws; aliens in our land, among our people.
* * * * *
ALIKE.
Synonyms:
akin, equivalent, kindred, same, analogous, homogeneous, like, similar, equal, identical, resembling, uniform.
Alike is a comprehensive word, signifying as applied to two or more objects that some or all qualities of one
are the same as those of the other or others; by modifiers alike may be made to express more or less
resemblance; as, these houses are somewhat (i. e., partially) alike; or, these houses are exactly (i. e., in all
respects) alike. Cotton and wool are alike in this, that they can both be woven into cloth. Substances are
homogeneous which are made up of elements of the same kind, or which are the same in structure. Two pieces
of iron may be homogeneous in material, while not alike in size or shape. In geometry, two triangles are equal
when they can be laid over one another, and fit, line for line and angle for angle; they are equivalent when
they simply contain the same amount of space. An identical proposition is one that says the same thing
precisely in subject and predicate. Similar refers to close resemblance, which yet leaves room for question or
denial of complete likeness or identity. To say "this is the identical man," is to say not merely that he is