What's In A Nym?

Preface: to avoid the annoying repetition and likely erroneous omission of quotation marks, I’m taking the liberty of using bold italics instead. Please forgive me.

---

There are a couple of common words in our lexicon that we rely on a lot, and they describe the fundamental purpose of Roget’s Thesaurus: synonym and antonym. Interestingly, their derivation makes them misnomers.

Looking at their etymologies, both words are derived from Greek. Synonym came from syn- and onyma, meaning with or together, and name. Similarly, antonym came from anti- and onyma, meaning against, and name. The primary definitions of synonyms and antonyms are, respectively, similar and opposite words. Name is nowhere in sight, and it’s hardly synonymous with word.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’m risking my poetic license to create a few related terms of my own:

• Anonynym – word that has no meaning (anonym is actually a word, meaning anonymous person or pseudonym, but this is different)

• Decoranym – word that just looks good

• Duonym – word that has a double meaning

• Lacronym – word that leaves something to be desired

• Macronym – word that means everything

• Manynym – word that has multiple meanings

• Maximym – word that has the most meanings

• Mininym – word that has little meaning

• Mononym – word that has one meaning

• Nanonym – word that has very little meaning

• Narcissanym – word that thinks it owns the rest

• Pandemoninym – word that sows confusion

• Warynym – word with questionable meaning

I’m sure there are others, but I think I’ll stop here. I’m starting to strain my craninym.