A Chinese synonym 同义词 is a word or expression that has the same meaning as another. There are a large number of Chinese synonyms.
The abundant synonyms are good things for they provide lots of choices to express the same thing. But they are also difficult for foreigners because many Chinese synonyms have different emotional color, usage, or collocation. Due to these differences, they can’t be used interchangeably all the time. So, it’s very important to learn the “properties” of a word so as to know where and when it can be used and whether it can replace its synonyms in some.
As the Chinese name of synonyms 同义词 indicates, a Chinese synonym is a word or expression that have the same meaning as another. For example, 爸爸, 父亲, 爹, are synonyms because they all express the same meaning “father”. In some dictionaries, 同义词 is defined as: words or expressions have the same or similar meanings 词义完全相同或相近的词.
Although Chinese synonyms have the same meanings, they can’t be always used interchangeably. For example, 老公 and 丈夫 both mean “husband” but they can’t be used interchangeably in all situations. As mentioned above, the synonyms have different “properties”.
When learning a new word, don’t forget to learn its synonyms, which is very efficient to enlarge your vocabulary; besides, you can make a further step for your vocabulary if you also learn its antonyms.
References to Chinese synonyms：
Definition of a synonym in English
Dictionaries of Chinese synonyms
汉典. When you look up any word in this dictionary, you can get the related synonyms of this word.
近义词大全. This is a dictionary including synonyms and near synonyms.
喜蜜滋. A website for cultural stuff such as horoscopes and zodiacs, fortune telling, dream interpreting, etc as well as a dictionary for synonyms and antonyms, and other Chinese learning tools.