From Latin synonymus, the term synonymous It is an adjective that is used to express that a word has same or very similar significance as another . Two words they are synonyms, therefore, when they mean the same.
The semantic relationship of identity or similarity of meanings is known as synonymy . It should be noted that synonyms belong to the same grammatical category. It is possible to distinguish between strict synonyms and the contextual synonyms .
Strict synonyms are those words that have exactly the same meaning in any context. The terms in question, therefore, are interchangeable. For example: husband / husband (“I am waiting for my husband to come to work to go shopping”, “I am waiting for my husband to come to work to go shopping”).
Contextual synonyms, on the other hand, are words of equivalent meaning in certain situations: path / via (“The road to the beach is closed”, “The road to the beach is closed”, “I was injured for a while: I haven't walked so many blocks in a long time”, “I send you a gift via your mother”).
However, we cannot forget what is called synonymy of connotation. This is an expression that is used to refer to all those terms that are clearly related to each other but whose "union" is subject to subjective assessments. That translates into the disappearance of what the objective meaning is.
Other synonyms are dialect variants , whose meaning is the same although certain words are not often used in a given linguistic community: car / car / car / car.
There are also synonyms of similar meaning although with differences of degree: drizzle / rain / flood . These synonyms have different intensity. The drizzle is a light precipitation, the rain implies a greater amount of water and the flood is a storm of maximum intensity. Expressions as “The day of the trip it rained very hard” or “On the day of the trip there was a flood” They are synonymous.
It is important to emphasize that in an almost obligatory way when we speak of the term synonym, its opposite comes to mind: the concept of antonym. The latter we can say that it is a word that is used to make reference, within the linguistic scope, to all those words that express totally opposite things.
Examples of antonyms can be: light and dark; high and low; fat and thin; before and after; up and down; outside or inside ...
Such is the union that within the Language have synonyms and antonyms that it is usual for us to find dictionaries that deal with both. And the two are not only a good example of the richness of language but also become great tools, mainly for authors, when writing and not be repetitive.
And that is one of the keys that is considered to have to have every good writer, either a narrator or a poet. In this way, he will offer a work full of quality with which he will undoubtedly reach the reader and demonstrate his extensive linguistic knowledge.
