antipathy
Americannoun
-
antipathies
plural
-
a natural, basic, or habitual repugnance; aversion.
- Synonyms:
- hatred, detestation, abhorrence, disgust
- Antonyms:
- attraction
-
an instinctive contrariety or opposition in feeling.
-
an object of natural aversion or habitual dislike.
noun
-
a feeling of intense aversion, dislike, or hostility
-
the object of such a feeling
Synonym Usage
See aversion.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of antipathy
1595–1605; < Latin antipathīa < Greek antipátheia. See anti-, -pathy
Explanation
An antipathy is a deep-seated dislike of something or someone. Usually it's a condition that is long-term, innate, and pretty unlikely to change — like your antipathy for the Red Sox. If you look at the Greek roots of this word — anti- ("against") and pathos ("feeling") — you can see that antipathy is a feeling against someone or something. In general, antipathies are feelings that are kept at least somewhat under wraps and are not out in the open.
Vocabulary lists containing antipathy
Power Prefix: Anti
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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Common Senses: Path ("Feeling")
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Born in 1838 in Cologne and educated in Leipzig and Mannheim, young Max Bruch developed a fondness for the lyrical, intimate romanticism of Schumann and Mendelssohn, and an equally powerful antipathy toward Wagnerian maximalism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
"Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you," Bilton wrote.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
The mayoral hopeful didn’t articulate a platform that radically departed from Bass’, and voter antipathy to her muddled messaging showed: she ended the night in third place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
"Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you," Bilton wrote in a termination letter late Tuesday, according to CBS News.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
The refutation of the supposed antipathy between garlic and magnets was like a loose thread on a sweater: pull on it and the whole thing would unravel.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Put aside the irony of a charge of anti-Semitism hurled against a writer for whom anti-Semitism was one of his most visceral antipathies.
From New York Times ● Apr. 1, 2021
We wish you the best in your affections and antipathies.
From Fox News ● Dec. 9, 2019
By the time of Brooks’s attack on Sumner, sectional antipathies had almost killed the Second Party System.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
The NFL is in danger of stirring more antipathies than sympathies.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 18, 2017
But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
