Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
SYNONYM, SYNONYMIES (nn.)
Synonyms (pronounced SIN-uh-nimz) are two or more words that mean the same or nearly the same things. Bigness, hugeness, largeness, and enormity are synonyms, but hugeness may have a slightly frightening overtone, and enormity a suggestion of the monstrous and the grotesque that, for example, bigness and largeness do not share. Dictionaries usually contain synonymies (pronounced si-NAHN-uh-meez), brief essays that try to distinguish among the individual words in groups that seem to have roughly similar meanings. Usage problems often attend synonyms, as many entries in this guide attest (see, for example, SUPERNATURAL). Synonymy is also the name given the study of clusters of words of similar or overlapping meanings, a study that must precede the writing of synonymies.
