Word.ws English Dictionary

relexicalizing

relexicalizing is the present participle and gerund of relexicalize.

Meaning of relexicalize

Verb

relexicalize (third-person singular simple present relexicalizes, present participle relexicalizing, simple past and past participle relexicalized)

  1. (transitive) To change the lexicon of; to use different words for.
    • For example, in British newspapers, […] the process of telling someone off or reprimanding them is relexicalized as 'rap'. To criticize strongly is to 'blast' or 'slam', and to investigate is to 'probe'.2013, Michael Higgins, Angela Smith, The Language of Journalism: A Multi-genre Perspective, page 71
  2. (transitive) To borrow or adopt back into a lexicon.
    • to relexicalize a word

Questions about relexicalizing

What is relexicalizing the present participle and gerund of?
Relexicalizing is the present participle and gerund of relexicalize.

Words near relexicalizing in the dictionary

  1. relexicalization
  2. relexicalizations
  3. relexicalize
  4. relexicalized
  5. relexicalizes
  6. relexicalizing
  7. relexification
  8. relexifications
  9. relexified
  10. relexifier
  11. relexifiers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: relexicalizing (page history and authors); relexicalize (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “relexicalizing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/relexicalizing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.