Posted on September 8, 2018 at 4:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

You’ve heard of synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms, but have you heard of retronyms?

Chances are you’ve used them before — they’re terms like “whole milk” and “silent film” that put a modifier in front of a noun and describes the original meaning of the noun.

So before the advent of audio in movies, there was no need to clarify whether a film had sound.

Check out Merriam-Webster’s list of several common retronyms and enjoy the aha! moments of recognizing other ones in your daily life!  

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language

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