study can mean “read something comfortably, or skim through” and can also mean “read something carefully or in detail.” study is therefore a contraonym because it has many seemingly contradictory definitions.
A Merriam-Webster user recently messaged us on Twitter asking us for an entry for study:
: to look at or read (something) intimately or comfortably
: to examine or read (something) very carefully
“Is this for real?” he asks. “How did this happen?” It is real: study is a synonym, or a word that has two seemingly contradictory meanings. How study has two meanings which is complex.
Is this real? ‘Peruse’ has two opposite meanings? How did this happen?
Peruse’s original use
When study first introduced into the English language in the late 1400s, it does not refer to reading at all but to going through or checking off items one by one (like a to-do list). This meaning has led to another, more general meaning: “to examine or examine with attention and detail.” study this sense is common: Shakespeare used it in Romeo juliet (“Let me consider this face”) and Milton used it in Heaven is lost (“I myself then studied and Surveyed the genus of each genus”).
Of course, a common object of study was books, and in the early 1500s, study has come to mean, simply, “to read over or over.” When a writer wanted to convey something about attentiveness, they did so by using a modifier. Washington Irving in Salamagundi writes about a woman “who reads her book very attentively”, implying a careful researcher; Samuel Johnson in idler complains that “the ads are so numerous that they are used sloppily”, implying that they are only skimmed. study have lived with this broad meaning of “reading” for centuries.
Until 1906, i.e. when the commentator used Frank Vizetelly, in A Desk-Book of Errors in EnglishWritten:
peruse should not be used when simple read does that mean. The former implies reading carefully and attentively and is almost synonymous with to scan, that is, a careful and detailed examination. One person likes more read than to to scan or study Bible.
Where Vizetelly got the idea, we don’t know—it seems he came up with the rule himself. Maybe he’s listening to the original “check” feeling of study and ignore centuries of more general use. But Vizetelly’s prescription was absorbed and repeated by other 20th-century commentators.
Two “opposite” meanings
The effect of this is to divide the broad “read” meaning of study into two narrower meanings: one refers to carefully examining or reading something, and the other refers to casually looking or reading. These two meanings do not contradict each other; rather, they are just two sides of the same coin.
Nowadays, study almost always used in literary contexts. If you decide to use it, make sure its meaning is clear.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
