antipathy

English

Etymology

From Latin antipathia, from Ancient Greek ἀντιπάθεια (antipátheia), noun of state from ἀντιπαθής (antipathḗs, “opposed in feeling”), from ἀντι- (anti-, “against”) + root of πάθος (páthos, “feeling”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ænˈtɪpəθi/

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• Hyphenation: an‧tip‧athy

Noun

antipathy (countable and uncountable, plural antipathies)

1. A feeling of dislike (normally towards someone, less often towards something); repugnance or distaste often without any conscious reasoning.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. , volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, pages 164–165:

     "Truly I am one very likely to encourage romance in any young lady! Did you ever know me to patronise moonlight walks, or talk even forgivingly of cottages and roses? and have I not a natural antipathy to honeysuckle?"

   • 4 November 2016, Spencer Ackerman writing in The Guardian, 'The FBI is Trumpland': anti-Clinton atmosphere spurred leaking, sources say

     Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.

   • June 1917, The National Geographic Magazine Volume 31, No. 6, Our State Flowers/The Sagebrush

     The sagebrush belongs to the composite family, and its immediate cousins are widely distributed. They are known as the artemisias, and there are a host of them, many with important uses in the economy of civilization. Artemisia absinthium is popularly known as wormwood; from it comes the bitter, aromatic liquor known as eau or crême d'absinthe. Many of its cousins grow in Asia and Europe, including the mugwort, used by the Germans as a seasoning in cookery; southernwood, used by the British to drive away moths from linen and woolens and to force newly swarmed bees, which have a peculiar antipathy for it, into the hive

   • 1891, Henry Melville, chapter 13, in Billy Budd:

     Now when the Master-at-arms noticed whence came that greasy fluid streaming before his feet, he must have taken it—to some extent wilfully, perhaps—not for the mere accident it assuredly was, but for the sly escape of a spontaneous feeling on Billy's part more or less answering to the antipathy on his own.

2. Natural contrariety or incompatibility

   oil and water have antipathy

Usage notes

• Prepositions: "antipathy" is followed by "to", "against", or "between"; also sometimes by "for".

Synonyms

• (dislike): : hatred, aversion, dislike, disgust, distaste, enmity, ill will, repugnance, contrariety, opposition

Antonyms

• sympathy

Derived terms

Related terms

• antipathetic
• antipathetical
• antipathize

Translations

Further reading

• “antipathy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “antipathy”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “antipathy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.