Antonyms — REET English Notes

What is an antonym?

An antonym is a word whose meaning is exactly opposite to that of a given word — for instance, the antonym of 'hot' is 'cold'.

Antonyms come in three kinds: gradable (with degrees in between, like hot–warm–cold), complementary (with no middle ground at all, like present–absent or alive–dead), and relational (opposite in relation to each other, like buy–sell or teacher–student). REET mostly asks about ordinary gradable and complementary antonyms.

Useful antonym pairs at REET level

Some of these words have more than one acceptable antonym, as seen with 'fearless' in REET 2024.

How to avoid wrong options

REET's options often include a distractor that's a different meaning or a synonym of the given word, not an antonym — for example, an option built from the 'gift' sense of 'present', designed to distract you from the correct antonym 'absent'.

When two options give near-synonymous meanings that both look like plausible antonyms (like frightened/scared), don't panic — REET's final answer key has, in such cases, occasionally accepted both.

Building antonyms with prefixes

Many English antonyms are formed by adding a prefix to the root word — 'happy' becomes 'unhappy', 'correct' becomes 'incorrect'. The most common negative prefixes are: un-, in-, im-, dis-, non-, mis-, il-, ir-.

There's no single fixed rule for which prefix to use — it depends on the root word. 'im-' usually attaches to words starting with 'm' or 'p' (possible→impossible, patient→impatient), 'il-' to words starting with 'l' (legal→illegal), and 'ir-' to words starting with 'r' (regular→irregular).

It's important to remember that this rule doesn't work for every word — for example, the antonym of 'good' is not 'ungood' but a completely different word, 'bad'. So only apply the prefix rule where it's actually the standard, accepted form.

Common antonyms formed with prefixes

Which prefix to use depends on the first letter of the root word — spotting this pattern lets you make a reasonable guess for new words too.

The comparison ladder in gradable antonyms

Gradable antonyms sit on a scale with steps in between — in the temperature scale, 'hot', 'warm', 'cool' and 'cold' all appear. The direct antonym of 'hot' is 'cold', but the middle points 'warm' and 'cool' are also part of the same scale, so when picking the 'exact' antonym of a word, it's important to identify the two extreme ends of the scale.

REET's questions generally focus on the two extreme ends of the scale (like hot-cold, big-small), rarely on the finer middle distinctions (warm-cool) — so memorising the clear, far-apart antonyms first is the more useful strategy.

More useful antonym pairs (Set 2)

Together with Set 1, these help you handle both passage-based and direct vocabulary antonym questions in REET.

Examples of relational antonyms

Relational antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite in relation to each other — one word's meaning is incomplete without the other, such as 'buy' and 'sell', 'teacher' and 'student', 'husband' and 'wife', 'parent' and 'child'.

It's important to recognise these as distinct from gradable and complementary antonyms — here, 'opposite' doesn't mean 'hostile opposition' but 'two sides of the same relationship'. Relational-antonym questions come up less often in REET, but recognising them is still useful general knowledge.

How to teach children

REET 2024 questions (solved)

Practice questions

Frequently asked questions

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