English Synonyms and Antonyms

 contrivance or device may be either good or bad. A cheat is a mean advantage in a bargain; a fraud, any
form of covert robbery or injury. Imposture is a deceitful contrivance for securing charity, credit, or
consideration. A stratagem or maneuver may be of the good against the bad, as it were a skilful movement of
war. A wile is usually but not necessarily evil.
E'en children followed with endearing wile.
GOLDSMITH Deserted Village, l. 184.
A trick is often low, injurious, and malicious; we say a mean trick; the word is sometimes used playfully with
less than its full meaning. A ruse or a blind may be quite innocent and harmless. An artifice is a carefully and
delicately prepared contrivance for doing indirectly what one could not well do directly. A device is
something studied out for promoting an end, as in a mechanism; the word is used of indirect action, often, but
not necessarily directed to an evil, selfish, or injurious end. Finesse is especially subtle contrivance, delicate
artifice, whether for good or evil. Compare FRAUD.
Antonyms:
artlessness, frankness, ingenuousness, openness, sincerity, candor, guilelessness, innocence, simplicity, truth.
fairness, honesty,
* * * * *
ARTIST.
Synonyms:
artificer, artisan, mechanic, operative, workman.
Artist, artificer and artisan are all from the root of art, but artist holds to the esthetic sense, while artificer and
artisan follow the mechanical or industrial sense of the word (see ART under SCIENCE). Artist thus comes
only into accidental association with the other words of this group, not being a synonym of any one of them
and having practically no synonym of its own. The work of the artist is creative; that of the artisan
mechanical. The man who paints a beautiful picture is an artist; the man who makes pin-heads all day is an
artisan. The artificer is between the two, putting more thought, intelligence, and taste into his work than the
artisan, but less of the idealizing, creative power than the artist. The sculptor, shaping his model in clay, is
artificer, as well as artist; patient artisans, working simply by rule and scale, chisel and polish the stone. The
man who constructs anything by mere routine and rule is a mechanic. The man whose work involves thought,
skill, and constructive power is an artificer. The hod-carrier is a laborer; the bricklayer is a mechanic; the
master mason is an artificer. Those who operate machinery nearly self-acting are operatives.
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
53

---

* * * * *
ASK.
Synonyms:
beg, crave, entreat, petition, request, solicit, beseech, demand, implore, pray, require, supplicate.
One asks what he feels that he may fairly claim and reasonably expect; "if a son shall ask bread of any of you
that is a father," Luke xi, 11; he begs for that to which he advances no claim but pity. Demand is a determined
and often an arrogant word; one may rightfully demand what is his own or his due, when it is withheld or
denied; or he may wrongfully demand that to which he has no claim but power. Require is less arrogant and
obtrusive than demand, but is exceedingly strenuous; as, the court requires the attendance of witnesses.
Entreat implies a special earnestness of asking, and beseech, a still added and more humble intensity; beseech
was formerly often used as a polite intensive for beg or pray; as, I beseech you to tell me. To implore is to ask
with weeping and lamentation; to supplicate is to ask, as it were, on bended knees. Crave and request are
somewhat formal terms; crave has almost disappeared from conversation; request would seem distant
between parent and child. Pray is now used chiefly of address to the Supreme Being; petition is used of
written request to persons in authority; as, to petition the legislature to pass an act, or the governor to pardon
an offender.
Antonyms:
claim, deny, enforce, exact, extort, insist, refuse, reject. command,
Prepositions:
Ask a person for a thing; ask a thing of or from a person; ask after or about one's health, welfare, friends, etc.
* * * * *
ASSOCIATE.
Synonyms:
accomplice, coadjutor, comrade, fellow, mate, ally, colleague, confederate, friend, partner, chum, companion,
consort, helpmate, peer.
An