Some words are two-faced

To sanction something is to condone it, so how can an authority levy sanctions against someone?    

If a man cleaving to his wife means he sticks with her, why does a cleaver split something apart?

How can it be possible to clip a coupon from the newspaper, and also clip two pages together?

Blame the gods.

Sanction, clip, and cleave are examples of Janus words, or contronyms — words with two contradictory meanings. Janus was a Roman god with two faces, who looked in opposing directions at once. He's also likely to blame for the expression "two faced."

Despite today's negative connotation, Janus wasn't doing anything wrong. He was a guard of sorts; the god of gates and doors, thus necessitating the look in both directions. Janus was all about beginnings and transitions, worshipped at births, marriages, harvests, and other monumental life events.

Other examples of Janus words:

n Inoculate - protect against; infect with

n Cull - select; reject 

n Alight - settle onto; dismount from

n Fix - a solution; a problem (in a fix)

n Screen - display (a movie); hide (from view)

n Protest - object; affirm (protestations)

n Cork - to take ( a cork) out from, and insert in, a bottle

n Trim - remove from (a bush); add to (the Christmas tree)

n Rent - grant possession/hold; to rip (a fabric)

n Can - save (fruit); discard (fired from work)

n Stem - originate (from); stop (a growth)

n Seed - to plant seeds and to take them out

n Garnish  - add something to (a plate); take away from (wages)

n Root - get something to "take root" or to pull up (root out)

n Snap - break into pieces; fasten together

n Wear (also, weather) - to last (wears well); erode (wear it down)

n Left - be gone; remaining

Some contronyms are only so by culture. Here when you "table" something at a meeting, you remove it from the agenda indefinitely, or to be discussed another day. However, in Britain "tabling" an item means the opposite - to add it to the agenda.

And thus I table more Janus words, now that I've tabled these.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network and enamored of words. Email [email protected]