Words that sounds as if they mean the opposite

[CormoranStrike]

Sometimes words are just perfect - purring is exactly right for a cat, for example.

But some are so wrong. bucolic, meaning a beautiful countryside, sounds to me like something sickly and ill.

Any others?

I always think languishing sounds like relaxing quietly in a deck chair

Acquit - doesn’t sound like someone being found not guilty

Agree on 'salubrious'. Sounds like it should mean something slimy and vaguely unhealthy.

I have a personal block with 'recalcitrant'. For some reason it's fixed in my head that it means 'susceptible to control or authority', whereas in fact it means subversive. I always have to think carefully before I use it.

'Pococurante' is a good one. It doesn't sound remotely like 'nonchalant' but more like a victory cry, shouted while pumping fist into the air ...

Oh, and 'sybaritic'. Means sensuous or luxurious but sounds more like a nasty disease!

I love threads like this.

@CormoranStrike

And lucked out - I always think it means your luck has run out, but it actually means you have been really lucky.

Apparently it's used to mean unlucky, in Australia. I always thought it meant that in the UK too.

Bowdlerize sounds to me like it ought to make a text ruder but it's the opposite

Putrid - sounds the way it should

Parsimonious - has too many letters and syllables to mean stingy!

Extraordinary - I think “extra” means outwith, not additional

I'm going with hiatus.
Sounds dramatic, but actually means:
"a pause or break in continuity in a sequence or activity"
the example online being:
"there was a brief hiatus in the war with France"
which to me sounds like it all kicked off with France, but apparently not.

Yes! So many of these for me.

Razed - for decimated makes no sense.

Spend-thrift??

Bucolic - it sounds like some kind of illness, not a rural idyll.

Flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing - downright dangerous.

I offer you - hoi polloi. This always conjures up a group of posh types, but no, it means the exact opposite.

Blithe!

@Allywill

extraordinary. it is basically extra ordinary - like more ordinary than usual.

It helps to remember the Latin meaning of extra, outside. Sou extraordinary is out of the ordinary.

So! Not sou.

To be on your uppers sounds like it's a positive thing.

I always thought it meant you’d worn out the soles of your shoes, but I may have made that up.

@Malin52

Veto. I can never remember if it means to reject or confirm but to me it sounds like it's confirm so I use it that way!

It's reject lol

Not exactly what you're asking OP but to me the colour Chartreus sounds like it should be a raspberry pink, not a greeny yellow.

@ThanksMateThanksMate

"Sanguine" It's a positive adjective, no? I think it's used to compliment someone's adaptable and easy-going, easy-flowing nature. (I'm not sure) ....beacuse I can't see past slimy, warm blood!!

Sanguine comes from sanguinous which means literally 'has too much blood'. It's from the days when the four humours (bile, black bile, phlegm and blood) were thought to dictate health and personality traits.

They thought too much blood made people passionate and outgoing, energetic, happy and sexual. So that's why sanguine means that.

Craven

To me it sounds bold, depraved, brazen.

But it means the opposite - cowardly.

Livid should mean bright red in the face, but it means pale in the face

My DP always uses "wretched" to mean someone/ something that is horrible and annoying. But it actually means someone/ thing that is miserable and pitiable.

Pulchritudinous

It means 'beautiful' but sounds to me like it should be describing someone covered in oozing warts and boils.

Agree with pulchritudinous! So misleading.
Noisome comes from 'annoying' (or maybe we should say 'annoysome' ) so it kind of makes sense.

Not exactly the same thing, but I used to have an ongoing argument with a friend about 'easy on the eye' –I think it's a pretty glowing compliment whereas he was adamant that it was damning with faint praise, basically saying someone was 'just OK to look at'.

Enervate to me sounds like what it is.
How are you pronouncing it? I say 'ee-nervate' and the long 'ee' makes it feel slow and difficult. If you say 'eh-nervate' with a short 'e' though, I can see it would sound like 'energise'.

I always thought it meant you’d worn out the soles of your shoes, but I may have made that up.
It does mean that; you're walking on what's meant to be the uppers.

'easy on the eye' is definitely a full-bodied compliment in my book!

Thank you! There was never any telling my friend that

condone

because of condemn