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100 Common English Antonyms – Reference + Gap-Fill Activity

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Learn 80 antonym pairs! That’s 160 antonyms, by my calculations!

Print out the game boards below and have fun learning about antonym pairs with the Opposites Game!

Main game:

Work with a partner. Check you know the antonym pairs below. One of you chooses a pair and argues that one of the items is better than the other. Your partner argues that the opposite thing is better. Give reasons for your answers.

Game Board 1:

hot cold, day night, rich poor, car bus, cat dog

sweet sour, hi bye, pen paper, work play, walk drive

house flat, summer winter, sea beach, stupid clever, light dark

up down, TV phone, read write, boat swim, full empty

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Game Board 2:

active lazy, warm cool, stop go, early late, good bad

tea coffee, win lose, left right, weak strong, married single

huge tiny, eat drink, quiet loud, sun rain, fun serious

open closed, noise silence, buy sell, north south, wet dry

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Game Board 3:

fat thin, polite rude, new old, public private, lend borrow

right wrong, real fake, soft hard, everybody nobody, arrive depart

sit stand, man woman, long short, question answer, breakfast supper

sunrise sunset, same different, do don’t, near far, fight concede

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Game Board 4:

light heavy, truth lie, clean dirty, busy free, deep shallow

on off, give get, plus minus, first last, save spend

cheap expensive, wide narrow, now then, daughter son, young old

ancient modern, indoors outdoors, strict lenient, here there, tidy messy

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Other ways to play –

There are lots of ways you could use these game boards in the classroom. Here are some other great ways to have fun learning antonym pairs:

1. Create your own game board with different antonym pairs using our blank boards, then play the main game, or one of the additional games below:

Blank Game Board 1:

Blank Game Board 2:

2. Choose a game board. Cut up the cards and place them in a pile face down. Each student in turn takes a card and has to mime or act out the antonym pair for the other to guess. Or, they act out one of the words for the other to guess, along with its antonym.

3. Choose a game board. Cut up the cards and place them in a pile face down. Each student in turn takes a card and has to say or write a sentence using one or both of the words.

4. Choose a game board. Cut up the cards and place them in a pile face down. Each student in turn takes a card and says one of the words. The other student has to say the opposite word.

5. Choose a game board and use it to make your own board game. The start square is bottom left, and the finish square is top left. Move left to right on the first row, then right to left on the next row, and so on. Use coins as counters and find a dice. Throw the dice and move the number of spaces given. When you land on a space you have to say a sentence using that antonym pair, or tell a story from your life where that antonym pair featured. You could add snakes and ladders to make the game more challenging – and fun! Why not put two or more game boards together to make a longer game?

6. Choose a game board. One person tells the first sentence of a story using an antonym pair. The next student draws a line to another antonym pair and continues the story, mentioning the words in that pair. It continues until all the pairs have been used up – or the story finishes.

7. Your idea here…!

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