Oleomargarine is what margarine was originally called, sometimes shortened to 'oleo'. This makes it one of a select few: words which can be broken into two words, so that each of the two and the original word are synonymous. That is: oleomargarine = oleo = margarine. Can you find another two English words that share this property?

One word that came to mind was "sunshine". It could be considered synonymous with both "sun" and "shine", although "shine" usually means something else. This doesn't work as well for me as the word "sunlight".
For example:

I am going outside in the sun.
I am going outside in the light.
I am going outside in the sunlight.

These seem like synonymous sentences. I look forward to seeing some other answers to this.

Edited on February 10, 2004, 9:44 pm
Edited on February 10, 2004, 9:44 pm

Posted by Eric on 2004-02-10 21:38:44