English Synonyms and Antonyms

partly retributive, and partly corrective; chasten, wholly corrective. Chasten is used exclusively in the spiritual
sense, and chiefly of the visitation of God.
Prepositions:
"We are chastened of the Lord," 1 Cor. xi, 32; "they ... chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our
profit," Heb. xii, 10; "chasten in thy hot displeasure," Ps. iv, 7; chasten with pain; by trials and sorrows.
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CHERISH.
Synonyms:
cheer, encourage, harbor, nurse, shelter, cling to, entertain, hold dear, nurture, treasure, comfort, foster,
nourish, protect, value.
To cherish is both to hold dear and to treat as dear. Mere unexpressed esteem would not be cherishing. In the
marriage vow, "to love, honor, and cherish," the word cherish implies all that each can do by love and
tenderness for the welfare and happiness of the other, as by support, protection, care in sickness, comfort in
sorrow, sympathy, and help of every kind. To nurse is to tend the helpless or feeble, as infants, or the sick or
wounded. To nourish is strictly to sustain and build up by food; to nurture includes careful mental and
spiritual training, with something of love and tenderness; to foster is simply to maintain and care for, to bring
up; a foster-child will be nourished, but may not be as tenderly nurtured or as lovingly cherished as if one's
own. In the figurative sense, the opinion one cherishes he holds, not with mere cold conviction, but with
loving devotion.
Antonyms:
See synonyms for ABANDON; CHASTEN.
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CHOOSE.
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
90

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Synonyms:
cull, elect, pick, pick out, prefer, select.
Prefer indicates a state of desire and approval; choose, an act of will. Prudence or generosity may lead one to
choose what he does not prefer. Select implies a careful consideration of the reasons for preference and
choice. Among objects so nearly alike that we have no reason to prefer any one to another we may simply
choose the nearest, but we could not be said to select it. Aside from theology, elect is popularly confined to
the political sense; as, a free people elect their own rulers. Cull, from the Latin colligere, commonly means to
collect, as well as to select. In a garden we cull the choicest flowers.
Antonyms:
cast away, decline, dismiss, refuse, repudiate, cast out, disclaim, leave, reject, throw aside.
Prepositions:
Choose from or from among the number; choose out of the army; choose between (or betwixt) two; among
many; choose for the purpose.
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CIRCUMLOCUTION.
Synonyms:
diffuseness, prolixity, surplusage, verbiage, periphrasis, redundance, tautology, verbosity, pleonasm,
redundancy, tediousness, wordiness.
Circumlocution and periphrasis are roundabout ways of expressing thought; circumlocution is the more
common, periphrasis the more technical word. Constant circumlocution produces an affected and heavy style;
occasionally, skilful periphrasis conduces both to beauty and to simplicity. Etymologically, diffuseness is a
scattering, both of words and thought; redundancy is an overflow. Prolixity goes into endless petty details,
without selection or perspective. Pleonasm is the expression of an idea already plainly implied; tautology is
the restatement in other words of an idea already stated, or a useless repetition of a word or words. Pleonasm
may add emphasis; tautology is always a fault. "I saw it with my eyes" is a pleonasm; "all the members agreed
unanimously" is tautology. Verbiage is the use of mere words without thought. Verbosity and wordiness
denote an excess of words in proportion to the thought. Tediousness is the sure result of any of these faults of
style.
Antonyms:
brevity, compression, condensation, plainness, succinctness, compactness, conciseness, directness, shortness,
terseness.
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CIRCUMSTANCE.
Synonyms:
accompaniment, fact, item, point, concomitant, feature, occurrence, position, detail, incident, particular,
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
91

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situation. event,
A