Ancient statuette exhibiting dense polysemic value
Capacity for a sign to have multiple related meanings
Not to be confused with Polysomy.
"Polysemia" redirects here. For the moth genus, see Polysemia (moth).
Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsɪmi/ or /ˈpɒlɪˌsiːmi/;[1][2] from Ancient Greek πολύ- (polý-) 'many', and σῆμα (sêma) 'sign') is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses.[3] Polysemy is distinct from monosemy, where a word has a single meaning.[3]
Polysemy is distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two or more words (such as bear the animal, and the verb bear); whereas homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not. In discerning whether a given set of meanings represent polysemy or homonymy, it is often necessary to look at the history of the word to see whether the two meanings are historically related. Dictionary writers often list polysemes (words or phrases with different, but related, senses) in the same entry (that is, under the same headword) and enter homonyms as separate headwords (usually with a numbering convention such as ¹bear and ²bear).
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the three most polysemous words in English are run, put, and set, in that order.[4][5]
^"polysemous". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition). 2000. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008.
^"definition of polysemy". Oxford Dictionaries Online.[dead link]
^ abFalkum, Ingrid Lossius; Vicente, Agustin (2020-02-26), "Polysemy", Linguistics, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0259, ISBN 978-0-19-977281-0, retrieved 2022-06-06
^Simon Winchester, “Has 'run' run amok? It has 645 meanings… so far”. NPR, 30 May 2011.
^Brandon Specktor, “The most complicated word in English is only three letters long”, Reader's Digest, 9 Nov 2022.
Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsɪmi/ or /ˈpɒlɪˌsiːmi/; from Ancient Greek πολύ- (polý-) 'many', and σῆμα (sêma) 'sign') is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme...
number of distinct senses that are listed in Wiktionary is shown in the polysemy column. For example, "out" can refer to an escape, a removal from play...
digits on a hand". Autohyponymy is also called "vertical polysemy". Horn called this "licensed polysemy", but found that autohyponyms also formed even when...
like all machine translation programs, Google Translate struggles with polysemy (the multiple meanings a word may have) and multiword expressions (terms...
representation (a single vector in the semantic space). In other words, polysemy and homonymy are not handled properly. For example, in the sentence "The...
homonymy. Heterosemy contrasts with polysemy: while heterosemy implies two distinct words with the same form, polysemy implies one word with multiple meanings...
smallest possible unit of meaning) or a sememe (larger unit of meaning), and polysemy of a word of phrase is the property of having multiple semes or sememes...
possible to disambiguate them to discern the intended meaning. The term polysemy is used if the different meanings are closely related to one another, like...
skewed definition of term Plausible deniability: a blame-shifting technique Polysemy: the property of word or phrase having certain type of multiple meanings...
settings such as bufo theatre, is largely responsible for such worldwide polysemy of the term. In addition, "rumba" was the primary marketing term for Cuban...
source of the non-alignment about the communicative act. Aberrant decoding Polysemy "Definition of MISCOMMUNICATION". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-03-01...
Synecdoche and metalepsis are considered specific types of metonymy. Polysemy, the capacity for a word or phrase to have multiple meanings, sometimes...
neutral descriptive term that avoids distinguishing between vagueness, polysemy, and homonymy. Some cases of colexification are common across the world...
meaningless, the structural integrity of this sentence is high. The mechanism of polysemy – where a word has multiple meanings – can be used to create an interpretation...
Legadoandalusi.es. Retrieved 2011-03-11. Bush, Olga (2015). "Entangled Gazes: The Polysemy of the New Great Mosque of Granada". Muqarnas. 32: 97–134. doi:10.1163/22118993-00321P07...
An albur (plural: albures) is a word play in Mexican Spanish that involves a double entendre. The first meaning in the Spanish language of albur refers...
modelling of lexical knowledge : a corpus-based investigation of systematic polysemy. lib.ed.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Edinburgh. hdl:1842/22394. OCLC 1063499316...
hyponym of the word synonym.[citation needed] The analysis of synonymy, polysemy, hyponymy, and hypernymy is inherent to taxonomy and ontology in the information...
lexical ambiguity results from a single word having two senses, it is called polysemy. For instance, the English "foot" is polysemous since in general it refers...
Taking the knee Seravalle, Francesca (2017). "The Fist Photos: On the Polysemy of the Fist". Photographic Museum of Humanity. Retrieved July 2, 2019....
cremation or burial. Though the charnel ground is to be understood as a polysemy and metaphor it must be emphasized that holy people as part of their sadhana...
ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024. Taylor, Charles. "The Polysemy of the Secular", Social Research, Winter 2009, Vol. 76 Issue 4, pp. 1143–1166...
that are spelled or pronounced the same way but hold different meanings. Polysemy refers to a word having two or more related meanings. Ambonym refers to...
Polysemy of Verbs" AlBader, Yousuf B. (2016) "From dašš l-ġōṣ to dašš twitar: Semantic Change in Kuwaiti Arabic" AlBader, Yousuf B. (2017) "Polysemy and...
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