Contranym

A contranym is a word that can be its own opposite.

Contranyms — like a heteronym, portemanteau, palindrome and semordnilap — are neat things to look out for. Like how you can dust something to pick up dust from a surface and dust that surface to remove dust from it.

So versatile. Or perhaps confusing.

A reader also pointed out to me that my sketch Try new things includes "anxious to try new things." And that, curiously, this can mean both eager to try new things and not keen on trying new things—how I meant it.

I learned this from Kathryn Schulz’ excellent article, What part of “No, totally” don’t you understand , about how “no, totally” came to mean “yes.”