What’s the difference between first-degree murder and first-degree burn?

The same words are being used to describe opposite things: First- degree means most severe in the case of a murder charge or least severe in reference to a burn.

These words are classified as words with opposite meanings within themselves. They are often called Janus words, after Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings. (January, the first month of the year, is named for him.)

Janus usually was represented in art as having two bearded faces that faced in opposite directions, as do doors. Janus words go by many names: autoantonym, self-antonym, contronym, or even verbal hermaphrodite. Only context can tell you which meaning is being employed according to the register used.

Check out examples of Janus words:

• Weather can mean “to endure” or “to erode.”
• Sanction can mean “to allow” or “to prohibit.”
• Fix can mean “a solution” (as in “find a quick fix”) or “a problem” (“left us in a fix”).
• Clip can mean “to separate” (as in “clip the coupon from the paper”) or “to join” (as in “clip the answer sheets together”).
• Left as a verb in the past tense means “to have gone”; as an adjective, it means “remaining.”
• Wear can mean “to last under use” or “to erode under use.”
• Buckle can mean “to fasten” or “to bend and then break.”
• Bolt can mean “to secure, lock” or “to start suddenly and run away.”
• Screen can mean “to conceal” or “to show.”
• Fast can mean “moving quickly” (as in “running fast”) or “not moving” (as in “stuck fast”).

Curious? Take a look at some more:

• Bound: to tie someone or something to a particular spot or thing or to (prepare to) go to a specific place
• Dust: to use a cloth to remove dust from the surface of something or to cover something with a light powder
• Hold up: to support or to obstruct
• Lease/Rent: to pay someone to use their property or to offer someone use of your property in exchange for payment
• Mean: unkind, aggressive, spiteful or excellent
• Peer: a member on the nobility or an equal
• Refrain: to desist or a repeated number of lines
• Seed: to sow seeds or to remove seeds
• Strike: to hit, succeed or to miss, fail
• Transparent: invisible, see-through, apparent or obvious
• Trim: to decorate, adorn or to cut away excess
• Wind up: to power something up to make it start or to gradually bring something to an end
• Wicked: bad, evil, or excellent
• Continue: To keep doing an action or to suspend an action
• Overlook: To supervise or to neglect
• Oversight: Monitoring or failing to oversee
• Sanguine: Confidently cheerful or bloodthirsty
• Scan: To peruse or to glance
• Strike: To hit or to miss in an attempt to hit
• Table: To propose (in British English) or to set aside
• Wind up: To end or to start up