Quick Answer
Transmit means to send or pass something on: a signal from a station, a message to a colleague, an infection from person to person, or rights passing to an heir. It has no true one-word antonym: nothing un-sends a signal the way erase un-writes a record. What English offers instead is three honest kinds of contrast, each labelled for what it is:
- Receive: the partner role at the far end of the same act: one side transmits, the other receives. A counterpart, not a reversal.
- Withhold: choosing not to send at all, with retain and keep as its forms: an absence of transmission, not an undoing of it.
- Block: stopping something on its way, with intercept as its deliberate, catching form: prevention, which assumes a transmission was at least attempted.
Older lists padded the three out to eight with suppress, contain, prevent and interrupt: stopping-words, dealt with honestly below.
Quick Comparison
| Contrast | Kind of contrast | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Receive | Partner role: the other end of the same act | The station transmits the signal; the set receives it. |
| Withhold (retain, keep) | Absence: the thing is never sent | The ministry withheld the figures from the press. |
| Block (intercept) | Prevention: a transmission under way is stopped | The hills block the signal from the valley. |
| Prevent, contain | Intervention: stopping transmission happening, chiefly of disease | Vaccination prevents transmission of the virus. |
The Senses of Transmit: What Is Being Sent?
The right contrast depends on what is travelling, because transmit does several jobs:
- Signals and broadcasts: a station transmits a programme; a device transmits data. This sense pairs with receive, and can be blocked.
- Messages and information: a clerk transmits instructions; a report transmits findings. This is the sense that takes withhold: information can be deliberately kept back.
- Disease: mosquitoes transmit malaria; a virus spreads by touch. Nobody receives an infection on purpose, and nobody withholds one: this sense takes prevention words, not opposites.
- Formal transfer: in law, property or rights pass to an heir by rule, at a set moment.
The Honest Contrasts
1. Receive: the partner role
Meaning: To get something that has been sent: the act at the destination end of a transmission.
Example: The transmitter transmits the signal across the valley, and the aerial on the cottage roof receives it.
Best context: Signals, broadcasts, messages and data: wherever a sending has a matching act of getting.
Nuance: Receive is a converse, not an antonym. The two words describe one event from its two ends, like buy and sell: receiving does not undo, reverse or prevent the transmitting: it completes it. A signal nobody receives has still been transmitted. Earlier versions of this page admitted exactly this, yet still listed receive as a core antonym; it belongs here, labelled as the partner it is.
2. Withhold: not sending at all (retain, keep)
Meaning: To keep something back instead of sending or communicating it: the decision that no transmission takes place.
Example: The company transmitted the good news at once but withheld the sales figures until the audit closed.
Best context: Information, messages, money and permission: anything held and deliberately not passed on. The formal-transfer sense lives here too: an estate not yet transmitted is retained by its trustees.
Nuance: Two near-forms share this entry because they name the same non-event at different strengths. Retain is the neutral version: the system retains the data locally: keeping without the hint of refusal; keep is its plain everyday form (“keep it to yourself”). Withhold adds deliberateness, often resented. All three describe an absence: the thing stayed where it was. A real contrast with transmitting, but not a reversal: nothing travelled and came back.
3. Block: stopping it on its way (intercept)
Meaning: To stop something from passing through or reaching its destination: the transmission begins, or is attempted, and is cut off in transit.
Example: The ridge blocks the signal, so the farmhouse cannot receive the broadcast at all.
Best context: Signals, sound, heat, light and data moving through a medium: plus, in its folded form, material caught in transit.
Nuance: Intercept is this same contrast with intent added: to catch a message or consignment deliberately on its way, before it arrives. Suppress belongs here too, as blocking applied to information: officials suppressing a report so it cannot be communicated. What all three share is a limit: they prevent arrival, so they presuppose a transmission under way or intended. Nothing here reverses transmit itself: a blocked signal was transmitted, and simply failed to land.
Close Neighbours: Where the Other Old Entries Belong
Three of the old page’s eight “core antonyms” remain, and each names an intervention rather than a contrast of role, absence or passage:
- Prevent: to stop something happening at all. It pairs with any event: a fire, a meeting, a mistake: not with transmit in particular. Against disease it is genuinely useful: prevent transmission is standard public-health phrasing: but what it opposes is the transmission occurring, not the verb’s meaning.
- Contain: to keep something harmful within limits: health workers contain an outbreak. Something contained may still transmit inside the boundary; containment limits spread rather than reversing it.
- Interrupt: to break the continuity of something already running: a storm interrupts the broadcast. It is a pause in the process, not an opposite of it.
- Stop: the plain word behind all three: interventions in a transmission’s story, not reversals of the word.
Example Sentences
- The station transmits the programme at six, and older sets receive it on a different frequency.
- The ministry withheld the report rather than transmit its findings to the press.
- A concrete wall will block the signal, however strongly it is transmitted.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Calling “receive” a strict antonym
❌ The antonym of transmit is receive, because receiving undoes a transmission.
✅ Receive is the partner role: it completes a transmission at the far end rather than undoing it.
A receiver takes delivery of what was sent; nothing about it reverses or cancels the sending: the two acts need each other.
Mistake 2: Using “withhold” for signals and disease
❌ The hills withheld the radio signal from the valley.
✅ The hills blocked the radio signal.
Withhold needs a holder making a choice. Hills make no choices, and nobody withholds a virus: signals are blocked, diseases are prevented or contained.
Mistake 3: Treating prevention words as word-for-word opposites
Prevent, contain and interrupt can each be said of almost any process: a wedding, a fire, a conversation. A word that “opposes” everything opposes nothing in particular: these verbs intervene in a transmission; they do not reverse transmit.
Mistake 4: Looking for one antonym that fits every sense
The verb sends four different kinds of thing, so no single answer fits. Match the contrast to the cargo: receive for the far end of a signal, withhold for information kept back, block for a signal stopped in transit, prevent for a disease kept from spreading.
Mini Quiz
1. Why is receive not a strict antonym of transmit?
A. Because it completes the act at the other end instead of reversing it
B. Because it is only used for letters and parcels
C. Because it is a noun, not a verb
Answer: A. Transmitting and receiving are the two ends of one event, like buying and selling; receive is an ordinary verb used for signals and messages of every kind.
2. “The department decided to __ the figures rather than transmit them to the newspapers.” Which word fits?
A. Intercept
B. Withhold
C. Receive
Answer: B. Withhold: the figures were kept back, so no transmission took place. Intercept means catching them on their way; receive is what the newspapers would have done.
3. “Thick walls __ the signal, so nothing reaches the rooms inside.” Which word fits?
A. Retain
B. Contain
C. Block
Answer: C. Block stops a signal in transit. Retain means keeping something you hold, and contain keeps something harmful within limits.
Short Q&A
Q: What is the main antonym of transmit?
A: There is no true one-word antonym. The closest contrasts are withhold: not sending at all: and receive, the partner role at the other end. Which fits depends on what is being transmitted.
Q: Is “receive” the opposite of transmit?
A: It is the opposite end, not the opposite meaning. A transmitter sends and a receiver gets; the two roles complete one act. That makes receive a converse term: the standard answer in technical writing, if labelled as a role rather than a reversal.
Q: What is the opposite of transmitting information?
A: Withhold it: keep it back deliberately. Where an authority stops information being communicated at all, the word is suppress.
Q: What is the opposite of transmitting a disease?
A: No word reverses it. Public health uses interventions instead: prevent transmission (vaccination, hygiene) or contain an outbreak once it exists; neither is an antonym of the verb.
Q: What stops a signal that has already been transmitted?
A: Block: a wall or ridge stops it in transit: or intercept, if someone deliberately catches it on its way. The sending still happened; only the arrival failed.
Key Takeaways
- Transmit has no true one-word antonym: a sending cannot be un-sent, only never made, partnered or stopped.
- Receive is the partner role at the far end of the act: a converse, completing the transmission rather than reversing it.
- Withhold, with retain and keep as its forms, is the absence contrast: the information, money or data is never sent.
- Block, with intercept and suppress folded in, stops a transmission in transit: prevention, which assumes a sending was under way.
- Prevent, contain and interrupt are interventions, useful against disease and broadcasts, but they oppose transmission happening, not the word itself.
I’m Leo Jackson, an English writer with a soft spot for the peculiarities of language and vocabulary. He specializes in exploring the nuances of English synonyms, antonyms, helping students, writers, and professionals choose the right word with confidence. My guides combine careful research with clear, practical explanations.
