Word.ws English Dictionary

enantioseme

enantioseme noun: a seme with polysemy of the type where at least one pair of its meanings are opposite to each other.

Noun

enantioseme (plural enantiosemes)

  1. (uncommon) A seme with polysemy of the type where at least one pair of its meanings are opposite to each other.
    • Near-synonyms: autoantonym, auto-antonym, autantonym; contronym, contranym
    • As a word[,] "cleave" may make only a single appearance in [Henry] Vaughan['s book titled Silex Scintillans], but the idea runs throughout the poetry. What Roland Barthes labeled an "enantioseme"—a self-opposing verbal sign²²—cuts, I believe, to the heart of Silex Scintillans: the emphasis...2004, “Civil War Cleavage”, in Donald R. Dickson, Holly Faith Nelson, editors, Of Paradise and Light: Essays on Henry Vaughan and John Milton in Honor of Alan Rudrum, University of Delaware Press...

Examples of enantioseme in a sentence

  • If not an enantioseme, 'aestheticism' is at least amphibolous.2010 [2008], Seán Burke, The Ethics of Writing: Authorship and Legacy in Plato and Nietzsche, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN:
  • Coetzee condenses the semantic content of words until they 'crack' into self-contained antonyms, which displaces their conventional significance (i.e. they become enantiosemes).2017, Arthur Rose, “Introduction”, in Literary Cynics: Borges, Beckett, Coetzee, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, pages 27-28:

Synonyms of enantioseme

Forms of enantioseme

pluralenantiosemes

Origin of enantioseme

By surface analysis, enantio- + seme.

Questions about enantioseme

What does enantioseme mean?
Enantioseme means a seme with polysemy of the type where at least one pair of its meanings are opposite to each other.
How do you use enantioseme in a sentence?
If not an enantioseme, 'aestheticism' is at least amphibolous.
What part of speech is enantioseme?
Enantioseme is a noun.
What is the plural of enantioseme?
The plural of enantioseme is enantiosemes.

Words near enantioseme in the dictionary

  1. enantioselection
  2. enantioselective
  3. enantioselectively
  4. enantioselectivities
  5. enantioselectivity
  6. enantioseme
  7. enantiosemes
  8. enantiosemy
  9. enantioseparate
  10. enantioseparated
  11. enantioseparation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: enantioseme (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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