Does empty have a gradable antonym in English?
Empty doesn't seem to have a gradable antonym. If something is not empty and not full, then it is not empty, but is there a single word expression for this?
Edit:
To make it more evident, I'm looking for something like what warm is on the scale of cold and hot.
Solution 1:
Sparse and its antonym dense may serve in some contexts, such as mathematics and computer science. For example, a sparse set is a set that has few members out of a large potential population of members. An empty set has no members, and a dense set has many members. However, I can't recall hearing the term full set in this context.
In other contexts, such as "a glass half-full" one would not use sparse or dense.
Solution 2:
The word 'antonym' needs defining before one can comment sensibly on this sort of question. There are different but related senses.
At http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/antonymsterms.htm , one class of antonyms is termed:
... Gradable Antonyms
and defined:
Gradable antonyms include pairs like the following: beautiful - ugly expensive - cheap fast - slow hot - cold increase - decrease long - short love - hate rich - poor sweet - sour wide- narrow These pairs are called gradable antonyms because they do not represent [refer to] an either-or relation but rather a more-less relation. The words can be viewed as terms at the end-points of a continuum or gradient.
Now while empty and full are essentially absolute adjectives, whereas say fast and slow are not, the former are certainly terms which refer to 'the end-points of a continuum or gradient'. They are gradable antonyms.