English Synonyms and Antonyms

Company, from the Latin cum, with, and panis, bread, denotes primarily the association of those who eat at a
common table, or the persons so associated, table-companions, messmates, friends, and hence is widely
extended to include any association of those united permanently or temporarily, for business, pleasure,
festivity, travel, etc., or by sorrow, misfortune, or wrong; company may denote an indefinite number
(ordinarily more than two), but less than a multitude; in the military sense a company is a limited and definite
number of men; company implies more unity of feeling and purpose than crowd, and is a less formal and more
familiar word than assemblage or assembly. An assemblage may be of persons or of objects; an assembly is
always of persons. An assemblage is promiscuous and unorganized; an assembly is organized and united in
some common purpose. A conclave is a secret assembly. A convocation is an assembly called by authority for
a special purpose; the term convention suggests less dependence upon any superior authority or summons. A
group is small in number and distinct in outline, clearly marked off from all else in space or time. Collection,
crowd, gathering, group, and multitude have the unorganized and promiscuous character of the assemblage;
the other terms come under the general idea of assembly. Congregation is now almost exclusively religious;
meeting is often so used, but is less restricted, as we may speak of a meeting of armed men. Gathering refers
to a coming together, commonly of numbers, from far and near; as, the gathering of the Scottish clans.
Antonyms:
dispersion, loneliness, privacy, retirement, seclusion, solitude.
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COMPEL.
Synonyms:
coerce, drive, make, oblige. constrain, force, necessitate,
To compel one to an act is to secure its performance by the use of irresistible physical or moral force. Force
implies primarily an actual physical process, absolutely subduing all resistance. Coerce implies the actual or
potential use of so much force as may be necessary to secure the surrender of the will; the American
secessionists contended that the Federal government had no right to coerce a State. Constrain implies the
yielding of judgment and will, and in some cases of inclination or affection, to an overmastering power; as,
"the love of Christ constraineth us," 2 Cor. v, 14. Compare DRIVE; INFLUENCE.
Antonyms:
See synonyms for HINDER.
Prepositions:
The soldiers were compelled to desertion: preferably with the infinitive, compelled to desert.
* * * * *
COMPLAIN.
Synonyms:
croak, growl, grunt, remonstrate, find fault, grumble, murmur, repine.
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
96

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To complain is to give utterance to dissatisfaction or objection, express a sense of wrong or ill treatment. One
complains of a real or assumed grievance; he may murmur through mere peevishness or ill temper; he repines,
with vain distress, at the irrevocable or the inevitable. Complaining is by speech or writing; murmuring is
commonly said of half-repressed utterance; repining of the mental act alone. One may complain of an offense
to the offender or to others; he remonstrates with the offender only. Complain has a formal and legal meaning,
which the other words have not, signifying to make a formal accusation, present a specific charge; the same is
true of the noun complaint.
Antonyms:
applaud, approve, commend, eulogize, laud, praise.
Prepositions:
Complain of a thing to a person; of one person to another, of or against a person for an act; to an officer;