Word.ws English Dictionary

synset

synset noun: a set of one or more synonyms that are interchangeable in some context without changing the truth value of the proposition in which they are embedded.

Noun

synset (plural synsets)

  1. A set of one or more synonyms that are interchangeable in some context without changing the truth value of the proposition in which they are embedded.
    • The basic object in WordNet is a set of strict synonyms, called a synset. By definition, each synset a word appears in is a different sense of that word.1993, D. K. Harman, First Text Retrieval Conference (Trec-1): Proceedingshttps://books.google.cz/books?id=A81RmnI0l5cC&pg=PA344
    • In some cases a synset that appears to be a logical choice for a query is nonetheless detrimental.1994, Donna K. Harman, The Second Text Retrieval Conference (TREC-2)
    Synonyms:
    synonym ring

Examples of synset in a sentence

  • A synset is essentially what Sparck Jones (1964, 1986) calls a "run," which is the basic element in her theory of semantic classification.1998, Christiane Fellbaum, WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database
  • In general, based on concepts from NLP and information retrieval, synsets are defined as a collection of data entities that are considered semantically similar.2019, Dipanjan Sarkar, Text Analytics with Python […] , Apress, →ISBN, page 522:

Synonyms of synset

Forms of synset

pluralsynsets

Origin of synset

Clipping of synonym set, coined in the context of the WordNet project.

Questions about synset

What does synset mean?
Synset means a set of one or more synonyms that are interchangeable in some context without changing the truth value of the proposition in which they are embedded.
How do you use synset in a sentence?
A synset is essentially what Sparck Jones (1964, 1986) calls a "run," which is the basic element in her theory of semantic classification.
What part of speech is synset?
Synset is a noun.
What is the plural of synset?
The plural of synset is synsets.

Words near synset in the dictionary

  1. synsacrums
  2. synsedimentarily
  3. synsedimentary
  4. synsemantic
  5. synsepalous
  6. synset
  7. synsets
  8. synstatin
  9. synstigmatic
  10. synsystematic
  11. SYNT

Source and license

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