Contranym

So, I'm going to start off here with several words. See if you notice anything they all have in common:
Off                                       Fighting with someone                              Apparent
Unpacked                             Out                                                             Seed
Strike                                   Left                                                            Bolt

Give up?

All these words are contranyms.

I bet you're wondering what a contranym is.  But first...

Jessie: A synonym of an antonym (Kind of ironic. The antonym is the synonym)

Mom: An opposite name, Like Spiderman and Anti-Spiderman/Birdman.

Dad: Censored words.

Actually, Jess was the closest to the real meaning.

A contranym is a word that is the antonym of itself.  "What?! How does that even work?!" I can hear you asking through your monitor. Well, it actually does work.

For example, above:

Off means both deactivated, and activated.  "The light turned off."//"The alarm went off."

Unpacked can mean both empty, like a room after someone moves out, or filled up, like a room after someone moved in.

Strike, in baseball, is a miss of the ball, but also when somebody strikes the ball, hitting it.

If you are fighting with someone, are you fighting on their team, or against them?

So, the XBox One is finally out, but I bet if you go to BestBuy, it'll be all out.

So, I went to BestBuy toget the XBox One, and there was 1 left. Lines were short because everyone left.

She bolted the dog house to the ground so her dog couldn't bolt off.

It is apparent that apparent means both obvious and slightly seeming as if...

Yolanda seeded her garden so she would have plants in a few months. But as she went to seed the apples off her tree, they were all rotten!*

The word contranym was coined by some guy named Jack Herring, in 1962, but when he made it, it was spelled contronym.  Fun fact.

Okay. Next week, I will really try to get a word with more historical references to it.

This is just one of those words that is an interesting word, that just has no history to it.

Here, if you want some fun reading...

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/75-contronyms-words-with-contradictory-meanings/

I think my word for next week will be Griffonage, which is not a mythological figure.

I did some research. This one does have some historical references to it.

*I'm not too sure about these last two. I saw them on multiple websites, but I have never heard seed or apparent in their second forms...