Is there a word for two words that have similar but
different meanings, but are often used as though synonymous and interchangeable?
Examples include:
- Photomicrograph and microphotograph
- Enlarge and magnify
- QC and QA
- Fixative and preservative
- Depth-of-field and depth-of-focus
I'm writing Cytopreparation Principles and Practice, a book
that describes how to prepare cells for microscopic examination (eg, Pap
tests).
Absent an appropriate word, I'll probably refer to such word
pairs as “odd couples.â€
Can anyone help?
Not because I think it's a better suggestion, but just to help expand your thinking a bit, there are words in foreign languages that LOOK like English cognates but are not; in French they teach us to call these faux amis, "false friends". I don't think you should switch to that term in your book, but maybe if you're going to coin a term for them, maybe this'll help you think of other possibilities.
I once got into a heated argument with someone over whether "channel" and "station" were true synonyms or not (I had written a haiku that depended on them meaning the same thing).
I've heard it said that all synonyms are only approximate, that there are always implications or shades of meaning that differ. Closest I've ever found to a truly identical pair is "epinephrine" and "adrenalin" (which, interestingly, both come down to "stuff from above the kidney", one in Greek and the other in Latin).
Thesauri are full of synonyms that range from “identical meaning†all the way to “barely hinted relationship,†so it's absolutely hard to find a word that can stake out a territory that is not already covered by such wide range.
Such a word would be a synonym of the word 'synonym.' For fun I google for it- no luck!
Now that you mention it, Ron, I offer another close pair: "compassion" and "sympathy". Both mean "suffering with", the former in Latin and the latter in Greek.
"A synonym of 'synonym' "—shades of Douglas Hofstadter!