Is there a pair (at least) of really absolute synonyms in English?

Question

Are there two words that in the same grammatical form have the same set of meanings? In meanings here context of use and necessary construction about the word are included.

For example, if one word is used by children and other by scientists, they are not really absolute synonyms.

If one verb is used as is and the other needs a preposition, they do not fit, either.

If one word has only a verb meaning and the other has a noun meaning, too, that is not a problem.

Edit:

An answer is found, but I'll upvote any further relevant answer.

Answer 1

In most cases even the closest synonyms will still have some slight differences in usage. Truly absolute synonyms can exist, I think, in some narrow fields. I recall stumbling upon an example somewhere - the word "gorse":

(Plants) any evergreen shrub of the leguminous genus Ulex, esp the European species U. europeaus, which has yellow flowers and thick green spines instead of leaves. Also called: furze or whin

We see that this plant has several names, and I doubt that there are any subtle differences between these names. So in this example in the field of botany we meet (presumably) absolute synonyms.

Answer 2

As you reject any word pairs in which one or both words also have a meaning that is different from the other word, I doubt you will find any examples.

As given in the comments, sum and total as verbs meaning to add up the separate values are synonyms, but they are probably normally used in different contexts - and you seem to reject them on that basis.

Likewise, most (if not all) synonym pairs that will be proposed will contain words that can or will be more appropriate in some situations than the other word in the pair, and sometimes one or both will also have different meanings altogether.

If there were any such pairs as you are looking for, I suspect one word will supersede the other: one will become less common, possibly obsolete since there is little use in having two words without any meaningful difference (compare three times and thrice. I only hear thrice used on a regular basis in Indian English.)

It is also possible that one of the words changes meaning to use both words in a meaningful way in the language.

Think of what happened to "boeuf" being introduced in English, being originally the exact French synonym for "cow". It was used in English (as "beef") to mean exclusively "the meat of the cow".

Maybe "for example" and "e.g." fit your definitions, although they are not single words but fixed expressions representing an idea. Actually, "e.g." is usually pronounced as "for example".

Edit:

Thank you Vilmar for pointing me at botany! Yes, in the names of plants we do find absolute synonyms, and not only in obscure areas...

Eggplant an aubergine are exactly the same vegetable (and the name brinjol or brinjal is used in Indian English). Similarly, there are spices with several names (curcuma, yellowroot and turmeric are all the same).

Answer 3

I don't think there is. At least not if you consider poetry or, let's say, the poetic value of words. See, even if two words are synonyms, they cannot replace each other in a poem (since a poem will not only rely on their meaning, but also their sound, cf. stylistic devices). Hence, a pair of absolute synonyms would need to also sound the same, at which point you're merely talking about a spelling difference.

Answer 4

You won't get anywhere with common words, as they always have slight emotional differences. You won't get anywhere with words of significantly different root because along with the root comes different origin and different regional adaptation level, one being more common than other.

I guess the only domain where you can find absolute synonyms is slight spelling alterations where both spellings are acceptable but the word itself uncommon enough that neither spelling could be deemed dominant.

My suggestion would be a possum and an opossum. Ngram of the two has them within error margin away from each other frequency-wise, the spelling is different enough that it grants a different article for each, and you'd have to try really hard to find differences in formality, emotional load or regional acceptance between the two.

Answer 5

Linguistically, absolute synonyms are only those words which come from distinct language registers, such as literary vs. dialectal language, but refer to the same reality.

My favourite example is that of the girl / lass synonymity, which is a clear illustration of this phenomenon. (Of course, lass can also mean a maid servant, but this is already a specialized meaning of the word, which it got only later on.)

Answer 6

I think flammable and inflammable may fit these criteria.

Answer 7

I'm going to go with "dog" and "hound", used as a noun. I think in most reasonable circumstances, you could switch them without anyone complaining.

Of course, there are always exceptions. A "learn the alphabet" book couldn't get away with "D is for Hound".

Answer 8

Actually there are no synonyms. If there are two or three words that are commonly referred to as synonyms they have all the same a totally different word history, and the usage of the one or the other may be restricted to variants of English as American/British/Australian/Indian English or to certain regions of a country such as Great Britain or the USA or the use may belong to the speech of an older generation or they are of different kinds of language level as colloquial, elevated style, academic, literary, poetic, archaic and so on.

For learners, I would say, it is important to know what is the common variant and what are frequent variants of the normal one. Schools tend to exaggerate the importance of synonyms and the effect is they establish cross-references in the mind that only disturb speaking or writing. You constantly think about the problem which word to use. If you know the sentence type - Hardly had she done A when B happened (A or B stand for an action/event whatever you like) that is actually enough. But when you learn five synomyns for "hardly" at school then you stop your speaking or writing and begin to think about which word to use. When you know the main variant with "hardly" and later find a variant in literature then you put is in you mind as a mere variant, but you still use the sentence type with "hardly". That, at least, is the way I do it.