Talk:Unpaired word

Samples

Con and pro are antonyms, but not in that context - which is why the joke is funny. (con/contra: against vs pro : for). Morwen - Talk 11:02, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I haven't explained it very well there (linguistics are not my strong point) but that was what I was attempting to say. If you can help to make it clearer then that would be great. violet/riga (t) 11:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for making it clearer. violet/riga (t) 11:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The pairing of "inept" is "apt"; such a change of vowel is quite common in latin. −Woodstone 17:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, inept is a borderline case. 46.186.37.98 (talk) 12:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Please explain in what way it’s a borderline case. Both words remain in common usage with expected opposite meanings. Surely “apt” and “inept” should not be on this list simply because a humorous deliberate misspelling exists.

Of course, once “inept” is removed from the list, someone will naïvely put it back again unless it’s mentioned elsewhere on the page. Are there any other tricky pairs? — Dan337 (talk) 00:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I actually came to this page looking for the story on "ept", which I've heard many times over the years, used humorously to mean skillful or talented. Someone told me the proper antonym of "inept" was "adept", and I was wondering why. I had no idea "inept" had any relation to "apt" until I read this talk section, which I came to because this seemed like a glaring omission from the page, and I figured it must have been discussed here at some point. (Since reading this discussion, I've searched and found several sources that list "apt" and "adept" as synonyms of each other.) Searching for "inept" in the article itself takes you to the Semantic Enigmas link at the bottom, which includes the perceived pairing of inept/ept and only adds to the mystery of why this pair isn't included!

One grammar blog I found says the Oxford English Dictionary includes an entry for "ept", with written examples dating back to the 1930s. (As the OED charges $295 for a subscription, I wasn't able to confirm this.) The article goes on to relate how inept, adept, and apt come from 3 different Latin roots and evolved through various meanings to arrive at their current relationship. See http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/05/ept-ane-ert.html

I now have the info I came here for, but you really might want to think about including some note in the main article telling people that the opposite of "inept" is either "apt" or "adept", and that "ept" is considered nonstandard, even though it's been used in published writing. Some basic explanation would be useful so that others looking for this information won't have to dig down to the talk page to find it. Seansinc (talk) 18:48, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

What about disgusted and gusted? From what I've read, apparently "gusted" is linguistically acceptable, although it would fall under "rarely used antonym". I'd love for Wikipedia to have a very long list of unpaired words. Batshua 23:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Currently in this page there are lots of *'s but there is no explanation of what they actually mean. I'd appreciate someone either giving a reason for them or just getting rid of them . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.112.192 (talk) 02:42, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't the antonym be "heveled," as in habiliments, clothing, (and even haberdashery) not "sheveled?" Modern French "dishabille" is undressed, but I thought "dis-heveled" meant disorganised in dress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.192.1.67 (talk) 17:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Story

There's a relevant classic ultra-short story "How I Met My Wife" by Jack Winter (published in the New Yorker magazine July 25, 1994) -- a simple Google search will turn up hundreds of copies out there -- but I'm not sure how it could be used in relationship to Wikipedia... AnonMoos 11:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's the story. At the very least it could be pillaged for all its unpaired words.

"It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my weildy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknowst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make head or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated—as if this were something I was great shakes at—and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had not time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d’oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myselfs.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savoury character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it."

Aaadddaaammm 07:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A link to that article would be appropriate in the "see also" section that's currently empty. Very amusing. --Keflavich 01:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Suffixes

I don't understand the suffixes section. You can take the -less off ageless, and age still makes sense. Same with countless, helpless, leafless, peerless, toothless, voiceless, frightful and rightful. Why are they included? Aaadddaaammm 07:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no opposite to them, such as ageful, countful or rightless. violet/riga (t) 21:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

But they do have related words. In, the prefix set the opposite words are all the real word minus the prefix. See how the two sets seem fundamentally different? Aaadddaaammm 00:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Lots of words don't have opposites, like cabbage, for example. Aaadddaaammm 00:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

But they appear as if they should have an opposite because of the use of such a suffix. violet/riga (t) 16:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Rightless does, in fact, exist, though. —Nightstallion (?) 23:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

And the opposite of cabbage is obviously Belgium.... —  MusicMaker5376 19:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Aaadddaaammm: “Ageless” is an adjective, “age” is a noun and a verb. — Dan337 (talk) 01:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The opposite of “ageless” is “aged”; “leafless”, “leafy”; “toothless”, “toothy”; “voiceless”, “vocal” (or, less frequently, “voiceful”). (We may disregard “vociferous” and “vociferant”.) “Countable” has a meaning opposite that of “countless”, but it’s usually paired with “uncountable”.

This appears to be moot, however, as the suffixes section no longer exists. Why is that? — Dan337 (talk) 01:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Absurd

Wouldn't absurd qualify as well? Ab- meaning against, and surd having no meaning in this context.... —  MusicMaker5376 19:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Nocent, couth

Why is "nocent" supposedly "not an exact antonym"? It means "causing injury"; an innocent person is by definition one who hasn't caused injury.

On another note, I've heard "couth" used quite often, so I'm not sure if "uncouth" fits the definition of an unpaired word.

Also, could it be helpful to specify in what era these words' pairs were used? I believe "nocent" is Middle English, although I recently came across it as late as John Bramhall. Graymornings (talk) 07:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Stinting

I disagree that stinting is rarely used. You can find 4220 uses of it at Google news for all dates, and 22 hits in current usage. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

That's the verb stint, "to skimp on". Circéus (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

What about these?

• noncommittal
• incontrovertible
• unprepossessing
• discombobulate — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.118.16.5 (talk) 18:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Noncommittal was probably created from the verb, not the noun. Antonymic uses are backformations. "controvertible" is much, much rarer than its negative, and prepossessing is, interestingly enough, used in the negative three out of four times in COCA. Circéus (talk) 01:41, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

*Psst...look below...

There are several italicized words in the list displayed on the Page which are starred ( * ). When I see a star like that, I look at the end of the page for the footnote. And there ain't were none, were there?

Nor am I sure as to why they were italicised in the first place. Emphasis? I am not fixing it because perhaps there WAS some footnote, or such, and it has been deleted in the history wars. So I'll let it go for a week. Added disgruntled to the list. It's a good page. Myles325a (talk) 02:52, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Shevelled

It seems somewhat silly to list this word. Does it relate to "two" (the only meaning of "di-" with which I am familiar) in a way in which "shevelled" would be a plausible corresponding word that doesn't? We could go on forever listing words whose first two or three letters coincide with a prefix. Which is indeed the nature of many unpaired words, except that normally the pairing is intuitively plausible (even if etymologically invalid). — Smjg (talk) 00:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

See my note at the end of samples — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.192.1.67 (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Japanese Section

Seems irrelevant - the rest of the article is about English and no mention is made of other languages. Also dubious humorous value (not a common part of jokes - more weird than funny). The notes on pronunciation are bizarre. Blanking. --49.134.85.219 (talk) 10:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

The -less words

What is the purpose of the "Paired word(s)" column - to give an antonym that actually exists, rare as it may be, or to state what the antonym ought logically to be? At the moment we have feckless, gormless and ruthless. You could go on forever listing non-existent -ful words - homeful, sleeveful, timeful just to name a few. (OK, I've just discovered that timeful does exist, though it seems to be far from an antonym of timeless.) Indeed, someone has already pointed this out, albeit in relation to content that has since been deleted. More to the point would be to note the (seeming) non-existence of words feck, gorm and ruth from which they ought to derive.

Still, what do people think we should do with these entries? — Smjg (talk) 01:03, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

avuncular

Does "avuncular" count, given that there is no feminine equivalent? Scareduck (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Inept

The word "inept" appears several times in passing, though not in the "Unpaired words in English" table, with the suggested antonym "ept". But I've occasionally wondered whether its proper opposite is "apt". If so, "inept" would classify as a sort of "false friendless", wouldn't it? yoyo (talk) 01:39, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe the opposite of "inept" is actually "adept". Seansinc (talk) 07:07, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Evitable

Should "evitable" be added to the table, as the opposite of "inevitable"? It's one of the non-existent words used in "How I Met My Wife" by Jack Winter, linked in the Examples section. It is in the dictionary, but Merriam-Webster notes that it is rarely used. Seansinc (talk) 07:12, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Rebuttal

‎Okinasevych Thanks for adding to the list. Could you put in a source/citation for the word? The article is already poorly sourced as is. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 05:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Committal

That's actually quite common in the chess literature. See this for example. Double sharp (talk) 11:43, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Whelm

I'm rather baffled. I'm accustomed to whelm meaning "to swarm/flood/heap about (or around)" and thus overwhelm to be too much/above head and underwhelm meaning not reached. 104.220.91.194 (talk) 19:43, 22 September 2023 (UTC)JH