Ratings were obtained from 100 subjects on a seven-point scale of the degree of synonymity of 279 pairs of nouns, half the subjects rating the pairs presented in one order and half in the other. Alternative synonyms were also invited. Mean ratings ranged from 6.76 to 3.34. Forty-six pairs were identical with those presented in a similar American study by Whitten et al. (1979). While the British ratings showed some differences from the American ones, the two sets of ratings were significantly correlated over these pairs. As in the American study, order of presentation significantly affected rated similarity in some pairs, though the American and British studies were not highly consistent in this respect. No distinguishing characteristic of such pairs was apparent.
Below you will find a series of pairs of words with similar meanings. Please look at the left-hand word of each pair and then indicate how closely the right-hand word matches it in meaning, using a seven-point scale. If the two meanings are not close, write a 1 in the column headed ‘rating’. If they are very close, write a 7. For pairs with a closeness in meaning between these two extremes, use the numbers 2-6. Finally, if you thought of another word as being closest in meaning to the left-hand word, write it in the column headed ‘alternative’.