Word.ws English Dictionary

semantic bleachings

semantic bleachings is the plural of semantic bleaching.

Meaning of semantic bleaching

Noun

semantic bleaching (usually uncountable, plural semantic bleachings)

  1. (usually) The process of a term losing its intensity over time.
    • Another type of status change is semantic bleaching, where the original meaning of the word has been eroded away and generalized by heavy usage, as in words like very (originally “true”), awful (“full of awe”), terrible (“able to cause terror”).[2001 July 5, Robert Stockwell, Donka Minkova, “Semantic change, guesswork”, in English Words: History and Structure, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 157

Questions about semantic bleachings

What is semantic bleachings the plural of?
Semantic bleachings is the plural of semantic bleaching.

Words near semantic bleachings in the dictionary

  1. semantemes
  2. semantic
  3. semantic analyses
  4. semantic analysis
  5. semantic bleaching
  6. semantic bleachings
  7. semantic borrowing
  8. semantic borrowings
  9. semantic calque
  10. semantic calques
  11. semantic change

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: semantic bleachings (page history and authors); semantic bleaching (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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