complementary antonym
noun1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences, Semantics A term whose meaning is the complement of another term, in an either-or fashion, such as mortal in relation to immortal.
2
Human sciences, Linguistics, Philosophy, Sciences, Semantics One of a pair of words wherein affirmative use of one entails the negative of the other with no gradability.
- Complementary (also called contradictory) antonyms are those for which the assertion of one entails the negation of the other and vice versa, as in (17). a. That integer is even. → That integer is not odd. b. That integer is not odd. → That integer is even.2010, M. Lynne Murphy, Lexical Meaning, page 120:
- Synonyms
- binary antonym, contradictory antonym
- Related terms
- complementarity, gradable antonym, converse antonym, biconditional