<P> In Latin, sacer has the double meaning "sacred, holy" and "accursed, infamous". Greek δημιουργός gave Latin its demiurgus, from which English got its demiurge, which can refer either to God as the creator or to the devil, depending on philosophical context . </P> <P> In many languages, a word stem associated with a single event may treat the action of that event as unitary, so it can refer to any of the doings or persons on either side of the transaction, that is, to the action of either the subject or the object, or to either the person who does something or the person to whom (or for whom) it is done . Other cues nail down the aspects of subject versus object . Thus there is a simple logic involved, despite that discussions of such words sometimes fixate on a superficial appearance of illogic (that is, "how can one word mean both?!"). Examples: </P> <Ul> <Li> Verbs <Ul> <Li> The German verb ausleihen can mean either "to lend" or "to borrow", with case, pronouns, and mention of persons making the sense clear . The verb stem conveys that "a lending - and - borrowing event is occurring", and the other cues convey who is lending to whom . This makes sense because anytime lending is occurring, borrowing is simultaneously occurring; one cannot happen without the other . </Li> <Li> The English verb appropriate has several senses with a unitary theme of assets being assigned; it can thus refer either to one giving assets to someone else or one taking assets for oneself . The superficial "contradiction" is that giving and taking are "opposites", but the unity is on the level of "assets being assigned". This is comparable to the German example with the lending - and - borrowing event: similarly, "opposite" sides of a single coin are (figuratively) involved . The coin analogy is useful because it reveals another latent English example of the same cognitive unity: One could ask why "flipping a coin" in English can "paradoxically" refer to either flipping and getting heads or flipping and getting tails . We don't have separate words, * heads - ing and * tails - ing; rather, we have the one word, flipping . Thus I flipped him for it at the same time that he flipped me for it; it is not the idiomatic nature of English to say that I * heads - ed him for it whereas he * tails - ed me for it, although any language could potentially develop that contrasting pair . In the German example, the comparable thought is that I lendborrowed to him at the same time that he lendborrowed from me--despite that English cannot idiomatically translate it that way because English currently lacks such a word as * lendborrow . </Li> <Li> The Romanian verb a închiria means "to rent" (as the lessee does) as well as "to let" (as the lessor does). </Li> <Li> The Swahili verb kutoa means both "to remove" and "to add". </Li> <Li> In his Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters, Qian Zhongshu gave some examples of Chinese auto - antonyms, like "廢" meaning both "to abolish" and "to establish". He named this kind of phenomenon "reverse symbolism" (反 象 以 徵). </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> Adverbs <Ul> <Li> Hindi: कल and Urdu: کل ‎ (kal (kəl)) may mean either "yesterday" or "tomorrow" (disambiguated by the verb in the sentence). </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> Agent nouns <Ul> <Li> The Italian and French cognates, ospite and hôte, respectively, also can mean "host" or "guest". All three words derive from the Latin hospes, which also carries both meanings . </Li> </Ul> </Li> <Li> Adjectives <Ul> <Li> Latin altus can be translated to English as either "high" (↑) or "deep" (↓), whereas in Latin it has the single meaning "large in the vertical dimension" (↕) in English . </Li> </Ul> </Li> </Ul> <Li> Verbs <Ul> <Li> The German verb ausleihen can mean either "to lend" or "to borrow", with case, pronouns, and mention of persons making the sense clear . The verb stem conveys that "a lending - and - borrowing event is occurring", and the other cues convey who is lending to whom . This makes sense because anytime lending is occurring, borrowing is simultaneously occurring; one cannot happen without the other . </Li> <Li> The English verb appropriate has several senses with a unitary theme of assets being assigned; it can thus refer either to one giving assets to someone else or one taking assets for oneself . The superficial "contradiction" is that giving and taking are "opposites", but the unity is on the level of "assets being assigned". This is comparable to the German example with the lending - and - borrowing event: similarly, "opposite" sides of a single coin are (figuratively) involved . The coin analogy is useful because it reveals another latent English example of the same cognitive unity: One could ask why "flipping a coin" in English can "paradoxically" refer to either flipping and getting heads or flipping and getting tails . We don't have separate words, * heads - ing and * tails - ing; rather, we have the one word, flipping . Thus I flipped him for it at the same time that he flipped me for it; it is not the idiomatic nature of English to say that I * heads - ed him for it whereas he * tails - ed me for it, although any language could potentially develop that contrasting pair . In the German example, the comparable thought is that I lendborrowed to him at the same time that he lendborrowed from me--despite that English cannot idiomatically translate it that way because English currently lacks such a word as * lendborrow . </Li> <Li> The Romanian verb a închiria means "to rent" (as the lessee does) as well as "to let" (as the lessor does). </Li> <Li> The Swahili verb kutoa means both "to remove" and "to add". </Li> <Li> In his Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters, Qian Zhongshu gave some examples of Chinese auto - antonyms, like "廢" meaning both "to abolish" and "to establish". He named this kind of phenomenon "reverse symbolism" (反 象 以 徵). </Li> </Ul> </Li>

What is it called when two opposite words are together