A phantonym is a word that sounds like it should mean one thing, when in fact it means something completely different. The term was coined in 2009 when President Obama said the word “fulsome”, thinking it meant “full”. In fact, the word actually means “excessive, offensive, and overdone”.

This is a common blunder in the English language. I’ve noticed a lot of these types of words, and I’ve decided to create a quiz to test how well the average person knows them. In the quiz below, all you have to do is guess whether the words mean something positive or negative. I’ve also included some words that are neither positive nor negative, just to throw you off a little bit. Feel free to share your results in the comments!

Type G to guess Good

Type B to guess Bad

Type N to guess Neutral

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27FOB-onlanguage-t.html
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/buzzword/entries/phantonym.html