Spelled the Same, but Opposite?

I just had my mind blown by the English language, yet again.   There’s actually a word whose opposite (or close to it) is the same word, spelled the same, but pronounced differently.  That word is: resigned.  “Jon resigned his position on the basketball team.” vs. “Jon resigned his contract with the team for one more season.”   As in, that BP CEO who resigned and got an $18 million bonus.

Not knowing if I was using resigned incorrectly, I had to look it up.  Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com demonstrate the disparity on the front page of Google. Pretty cool – I feel like I just won the word nerd lottery.

resigned! sign again, or quit.
July 26, 2010 – 13:25 | By dariusz | Posted in Personal Stuff | Tagged , | Comments (4)
  • Mjswart

    That's awesome.
    Reminds me also of the word cleave (which is not as cool because neither meaning of the word is common).

    Cleave:
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleave

    The first meaning is to stick and the second meaning is to split. Huh?!

  • Dori Senos

    The Mandarin language can be complicated too… “ma” for example has four different tones it can be spoken in, each with a completely different meaning. (By changing the inflection of the word.) Fortunately they use a different character for each meaning, so in print you know what you are reading. Unfortunate for the person who speaks Mandarin as a second language and goofs on the tone, calling his mother in law a horse.

  • Geurts

    Oh man .. that's another great one. Notice that the two opposite definitions have almost the same origins ;)

  • Lindzy Humphreys

    you should read the book Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson, and your mind may explode. I like the new blogy look, D.