polysemy
/ˈpɒ.lɪ.siː.mi/
polysemy noun: the quality characteristic of a polyseme, a sign (such as a word or symbol) that has multiple meanings (senses), often including multiple similar ones.
Noun
polysemy (usually uncountable, plural polysemies)
- The quality characteristic of a polyseme, a sign (such as a word or symbol) that has multiple meanings (senses), often including multiple similar ones.
- Fifty years ago the linguist and semanticist Stephen Ullmann wrote that polysemy, the fact that some words have a network of multiple but related meanings, is "the pivot of semantic analysis" […]2011, Brigitte Nerlich, Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language, page 3
- Polysemy proliferates in natural language: Virtually every word is polysemous to some extent.2017 July 27, Agustín Vicente and Ingrid L. Falkum, “Polysemy”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Oxford University Press
- Antonyms:
- monosemy
polysemy meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian
polysemy in Tamil
- பலபொருள் ஒருசொல்
polysemy in Arabic
- ability to have multiple meanings
- تَعَدُّدُ مَعَانٍ taʕaddudu maʕānin
polysemy in Indonesian
- ability to have multiple meanings
- polisemi
polysemy in Persian
- ability to have multiple meanings
- چندمعنایی
Antonyms of polysemy
Forms of polysemy
| plural | polysemies |
|---|
Origin of polysemy
From polyseme + -y.
Questions about polysemy
- What does polysemy mean?
- Polysemy means the quality characteristic of a polyseme, a sign (such as a word or symbol) that has multiple meanings (senses), often including multiple similar ones.
- What is polysemy in Tamil?
- Polysemy in Tamil is பலபொருள் ஒருசொல். See Polysemy meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is polysemy?
- Polysemy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce polysemy?
- Polysemy is pronounced /ˈpɒ.lɪ.siː.mi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of polysemy?
- The plural of polysemy is polysemies.
Words near polysemy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: polysemy (page history and authors); polysemy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-polysemy.wav.
Cite this entry: “polysemy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polysemy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.