We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot — cold, light — dark, happiness — sorrow, to accept — to reject, up — down.
Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted: high — low, wide — narrow, strong — weak, old — young, friendly — hostile.
Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number. Here are some of them: to lose — to find, to live — to die, to open — to close, to weep — to laugh.
Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given: friend — enemy, joy — grief, good — evil, heaven — earth, love — hatred.
Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly — coldly, merrily — sadly, loudly — softly; b) adverbs proper: now — then, here — there, ever — never, up — down, in — out.
There are 2 types of antonyms: root and affixal. Complimentary words are not antonyms( day-night, woman-husband,summer-winter,dead-alive,mother-father,sister-brother,man-woman)
