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/sˈɪnənˌɪm/ Listen

noun

Synonym n. (pl. synonyms)

One of two or more words (commonly words of the same language) which are equivalents of each other; one of two or more words which have very nearly the same signification, and therefore may often be used interchangeably. See under Synonymous. (Written also synonyme) "All languages tend to clear themselves of synonyms as intellectual culture advances, the superfluous words being taken up and appropriated by new shades and combinations of thought evolved in the progress of society." "His name has thus become, throughout all civilized countries, a synonym for probity and philanthropy." "In popular literary acceptation, and as employed in special dictionaries of such words, synonyms are words sufficiently alike in general signification to be liable to be confounded, but yet so different in special definition as to require to be distinguished."

An incorrect or incorrectly applied scientific name, as a new name applied to a species or genus already properly named, or a specific name preoccupied by that of another species of the same genus; so used in the system of nomenclature (which see) in which the correct scientific names of certain natural groups (usually genera, species, and subspecies) are regarded as determined by priority.

One of two or more words corresponding in meaning but of different languages; a heteronym. (Rare)

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Etymology of 'Synonym'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Synonym" Quotes from Famous Books

... morning at 2.45 o'clock. It mattered not to them that a bed between two rolls of paper was the softest they could find, for couches and easy chairs are no part of a newspaper establishment. Sometimes the thought comes that "newspaper" is but a synonym for "slavery." ...

— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... mild again. An express from the Hudson's Bay Company departed for Saginaw, at seven o'clock A.M. The adverb "fiducially" first brought to my notice, as the synonym of confidently, steadily. Finished the perusal of Mr. F.'s manuscript lectures, on the Romish Church. Think them an offhand practical appeal to truth, clear in method, forcible in illustration. ...

— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... plates and glasses with one royal sweep of her arm, and defied her critics. They rose and wrangled more loudly. The comedian sighed and looked a trifle sadder and disinterested. The manager came tripping and suggested peace. He was told to go to the popular synonym for war so promptly that the affair might have ...

— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... hymns, and it gave birth to astronomy, which was assiduously cultivated because a knowledge of the heavens was the very foundation of the system of belief unfolded by the priests of Babylonia and Assyria. "Chaldaean wisdom" became in the classical world the synonym of this science, which in its character was so essentially religious. The persistent prominence which astrology (q.v.) continued to enjoy down to the border line of the scientific movement of our own days, and which is directly traceable to the divination methods perfected ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... spirits by the aid of charms, etc., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, "sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed ...

— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

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