How to use lexeme in a sentence

14 example sentences · noun

Lexeme means the abstract minimum unit of language or meaning that underlies such a set. Example: “A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.”

Examples of lexeme by meaning

nounThe abstract minimum unit of language or meaning that underlies such a set.

A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.2003, David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 118
Koontz-Garboden 2006), the unmarked lexeme is taken as lexically listed, even if its meaning (as it often does) includes templatic entailments, and the derivational morphology is taken to operate on the underived form to yield the derived form.2014 September 25, Rochelle Lieber, Pavol Stekauer, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology, page 347

nounThe wordform chosen to represent such a set or family.

For the second sense, where “word” means “item that should have its own dictionary entry,” lexicographers sometimes use the term “lemma,” but that has other meanings too, so among linguists the term lexeme is now standard, and I’ll use it.2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 17

More sentences with lexeme

For the different forms or shapes that belong to a lexeme we can use the term word-form.2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 17. From the entry lemma
Clearly, not all polysemous lexemes are contronymous, although their senses may be mutually incompatible.2008 May 6, Burcu I[lkay] Karaman, “On Contronymy”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 21, number 2, Oxford, Oxon: Oxford…. From the entry contronymous
There are in fact fewer univerbized lexemes than the transformational analysis predicts.1986, Piotr Ruszkiewicz, “One some recent claims concerning derivational morphology”, in Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical…. From the entry univerbize
For example, a search for the modern-Serbian lexeme захвалност (gratitude) would also return and indicate examples containing the Slavonicism припознанство.2011, Toma Tasovac, Natalia Ermolaev, “Encoding Diachrony: Digital Editions of Serbian 18th-Century Texts”, in Gradmann, et al., editors…. From the entry Slavonicism
Much like grammemes, quasi-grammemes oppose lexes of the same lexeme; unlike grammemes, however, they don't enter in categories.1991, Igor Mel'čuk, “Toward a Universal Calculus of Inflectional Categories: On Roman Jakobson's Trail”, in Linda R. Waugh, Stephen Rudy…. From the entry grammeme
Thirty adjective lexemes which zero-derive into verbs.1986, Terence Odlin, “Markedness and the zero-derived denominal verb in English: synchronic, diachronic, and acquisition correlates”, in…. From the entry zero derive
Languages may be compared in their patterns of colexification – that is, their ability to encode two distinct senses using the same lexeme.2022 June 9, Alexandre François, “Lexical tectonics: Mapping structural change in patterns of lexification”, in Zeitschrift für…. From the entry colexification
In addition to this, many of the basic hereditary lexemes still used in Tetun-Terik have been replaced by lusisms (borrowings from the Portuguese) in Tetum-Praça.2009, Geoffrey Hull, Standard Tetum--English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, Introduction, page x. From the entry lusism
For each lexeme, the scanner creates a small data package known as a token and passes this data package on to the parser.2004, Randall Hyde, Write Great Code: Understanding the Machine, page 68. From the entry token
A lexical item, or lexeme, is a dictionary word, an item which you would expect to find having its own entry in a dictionary.1999, Robert Lawrence Trask, Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 228. From the entry lexical item
To simplify the discussion, I will assume that the lexeme has no subsenses, subsubsenses, etc.—although this is seldom the case in actuality.1986, International Federation of Translators, Babel, page 44. From the entry subsubsense

Meaning of lexeme

noun The abstract minimum unit of language or meaning that underlies such a set.
noun The set itself; a lexemic family.
noun The wordform chosen to represent such a set or family.

Full definition of lexeme

Questions about lexeme in a sentence

How do you use lexeme in a sentence?: Lexeme is used as a noun. For example: “A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.”
What is a short sentence with lexeme?: “Thirty adjective lexemes which zero-derive into verbs.”
What does lexeme mean?: Lexeme means the abstract minimum unit of language or meaning that underlies such a set.

Adapted from Wiktionary: lexeme (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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