English Synonyms and Antonyms

similarity are external or superficial, and may involve no deeper relation; as, the resemblance of a cloud to a
distant mountain. Compare ALLEGORY.
Antonyms:
disagreement, disproportion, dissimilarity, incongruity, unlikeness.
Prepositions:
The analogy between (or of) nature and revelation; the analogy of sound to light; a family has some analogy
with (or to) a state.
* * * * *
ANGER.
Synonyms:
Synonyms and Antonyms, by James Champlin Fernald
41

---

animosity, fury, offense, rage, choler, impatience, passion, resentment, displeasure, indignation, peevishness,
temper, exasperation, ire, pettishness, vexation, fretfulness, irritation, petulance, wrath.
Displeasure is the mildest and most general word. Choler and ire, now rare except in poetic or highly
rhetorical language, denote a still, and the latter a persistent, anger. Temper used alone in the sense of anger is
colloquial, tho we may correctly say a hot temper, a fiery temper, etc. Passion, tho a word of far wider
application, may, in the singular, be employed to denote anger; "did put me in a towering passion,"
SHAKESPEARE Hamlet act v, sc. 2. Anger is violent and vindictive emotion, which is sharp, sudden, and,
like all violent passions, necessarily brief. Resentment (a feeling back or feeling over again) is persistent, the
bitter brooding over injuries. Exasperation, a roughening, is a hot, superficial intensity of anger, demanding
instant expression. Rage drives one beyond the bounds of prudence or discretion; fury is stronger yet, and
sweeps one away into uncontrollable violence. Anger is personal and usually selfish, aroused by real or
supposed wrong to oneself, and directed specifically and intensely against the person who is viewed as
blameworthy. Indignation is impersonal and unselfish displeasure at unworthy acts (L. indigna), i. e., at
wrong as wrong. Pure indignation is not followed by regret, and needs no repentance; it is also more
self-controlled than anger. Anger is commonly a sin; indignation is often a duty. Wrath is deep and perhaps
vengeful displeasure, as when the people of Nazareth were "filled with wrath" at the plain words of Jesus
(Luke iv, 28); it may, however, simply express the culmination of righteous indignation without malice in a
pure being; as, the wrath of God. Impatience, fretfulness, irritation, peevishness, pettishness, petulance, and
vexation express the slighter forms of anger. Irritation, petulance, and vexation are temporary and for
immediate cause. Fretfulness, pettishness, and peevishness are chronic states finding in any petty matter an
occasion for their exercise. Compare ACRIMONY; ENMITY; HATRED.
Antonyms:
amiability, leniency, mildness, peacefulness, charity, lenity, patience, self-control, forbearance,
long-suffering, peace, self-restraint. gentleness, love, peaceableness,
Prepositions:
Anger at the insult prompted the reply. Anger toward the offender exaggerates the offense.
* * * * *
ANIMAL.
Synonyms:
beast, fauna, living organism, sentient being. brute, living creature,
An animal is a sentient being, distinct from inanimate matter and from vegetable life on the one side and from
mental and spiritual existence on the other. Thus man is properly classified as an animal. But because the
animal life is the lowest and rudest part of his being and that which he shares with inferior creatures, to call
any individual man an animal is to imply that the animal nature has undue supremacy, and so is deep
condemnation or utter insult. The brute is the animal viewed as dull to all finer feeling; the beast is looked
upon as a being of appetites. To call a man a brute is to imply that he is unfeeling and cruel; to call him a