Negative words such as bad and sick sometimes acquire ironic senses referring to traits that are impressive and admired, if not necessarily positive ( that outfit is bad as hell lyrics full of sick burns). An apocryphal story relates how Charles II (or sometimes Queen Anne) described St Paul's Cathedral (using contemporaneous English) as ' awful, pompous, and artificial,' with the meaning (rendered in modern English) of 'awe-inspiring, majestic, and ingeniously designed'. Denotations and connotations can drift or branch over centuries. Some English examples result from nouns being verbed in the patterns of 'add to' and 'remove from' e.g.

For example, sanction-'permit' or ' penalize' bolt (originally from crossbows)-'leave quickly' or 'fix/immobilize' fast-'moving rapidly' or 'unmoving'. Other contronyms are a form of polysemy, but where a single word acquires different and ultimately opposite definitions.

Michael Jackson's Bad ( a song and an album) popularized the slang meaning of 'bad' as 'good'.

What is the antonym of