English Synonyms and Antonyms

intolerance is severe. Bigotry has not the capacity to reason fairly, fanaticism has not the patience,
superstition has not the knowledge and mental discipline, intolerance has not the disposition. Bigotry,
fanaticism, and superstition are perversions of the religious sentiment; credulity and intolerance often
accompany skepticism or atheism.
Antonyms:
cynicism, free-thinking, indifference, latitudinarianism.
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FANCIFUL.
Synonyms:
chimerical, fantastic, grotesque, imaginative, visionary.
That is fanciful which is dictated or suggested by fancy independently of more serious considerations; the
fantastic is the fanciful with the added elements of whimsicalness and extravagance. The fanciful swings away
from the real or the ordinary lightly and pleasantly, the fantastic extravagantly, the grotesque ridiculously. A
fanciful arrangement of objects is commonly pleasing, a fantastic arrangement is striking, a grotesque
arrangement is laughable. A fanciful theory or suggestion may be clearly recognized as such; a visionary
scheme is erroneously supposed to have a basis in fact. Compare synonyms for DREAM; IDEA;
IMAGINATION.
Antonyms:
accurate, commonplace, prosaic, regular, sound, calculable, literal, real, sensible, sure, calculated, ordinary,
reasonable, solid, true.
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FANCY.
Synonyms:
belief, desire, imagination, predilection, caprice, humor, inclination, supposition, conceit, idea, liking, vagary,
conception, image, mood, whim.
An intellectual fancy is a mental image or picture founded upon slight or whimsical association or
resemblance; a conceit has less of the picturesque and more of the theoretic than a fancy; a conceit is
somewhat aside from the common laws of reasoning, as a fancy is lighter and more airy than the common
mode of thought. A conceit or fancy may be wholly unfounded, while a conception always has, or is believed
to have, some answering reality. (Compare REASON.) An intellectual fancy or conceit may be pleasing or
amusing, but is never worth serious discussion; we speak of a mere fancy, a droll or odd conceit. An
emotional or personal fancy is a capricious liking formed with slight reason and no exercise of judgment, and
liable to fade as lightly as it was formed. In a broader sense, the fancy signifies the faculty by which fancies or
mental images are formed, associated, or combined. Compare synonyms for DREAM; IDEA;
IMAGINATION.
Antonyms:
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
141

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actuality, certainty, fact, reality, truth, verity.
Prepositions:
To have a fancy for or take a fancy to a person or thing.
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FAREWELL.
Synonyms:
adieu, good-by, parting salutation, valedictory. congé, leave-taking, valediction,
Good-by is the homely and hearty, farewell the formal English word at parting. Adieu, from the French, is still
more ceremonious than farewell; congé, also from the French, is commonly contemptuous or supercilious,
and equivalent to dismissal. Valediction is a learned word never in popular use. A valedictory is a public
farewell to a company or assembly.
Prepositions:
I bade farewell to my comrades, or (without preposition) I bade my comrades farewell; I took a sad farewell of
my friends.
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FEAR.
Synonyms:
affright, dismay, horror, timidity, apprehension, disquietude, misgiving, trembling, awe, dread, panic, tremor,
consternation, fright, terror, trepidation.