Word.ws English Dictionary

univerbation

/ˌjuːnɪvɜː(ɹ)ˈbeɪʃən/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Multicultural London English/ˌjynɪvɜˈbeʃən/

univerbation noun: the diachronic process of forming a new single word from a fixed expression of several words.

Noun

univerbation (countable and uncountable, plural univerbations)

  1. The diachronic process of forming a new single word from a fixed expression of several words.
    • Lexicalization and grammaticization compared In Section 3, it was pointed out that there are two kinds of lexicalization which can be usefully compared with grammaticization, i.e. fossilization and univerbation. The discussion and examples in this section will be confined to the more general and...2004, Walter Bisang, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Björn Wiemer, What makes Grammaticalization?: A Look from its Fringes and its Components, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 34
    • Standard examples of univerbation are cupboard, brainstorming, or necklace.2004, Walter Bisang, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Björn Wiemer, What makes Grammaticalization?: A Look from its Fringes and its Components, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN
  2. A new word formed by this process.
    • The two suppletive pronominal paradigms *se/o- ~ *te/o- ‘that’ and *i-/ei̯- ~ *e/o- ‘this’ are continued in many IE [Indo-European] languages, both as simplicia and as univerbations with other pronouns and adverbs[.]2025 May, Sergio Neri, “On the origin and development of the Albanian demonstratives”, in Journal of Historical Linguistics, volume 15, number 2, John Benjamins, →DOI, →ISSN, page 320

univerbation meaning in Arabic

univerbation in Arabic

(linguistics) the diachronic process of forming a new single word from a fixed expression of several words
نَحْت naḥt

Synonyms of univerbation

Forms of univerbation

pluraluniverbations

Origin of univerbation

Probably from French univerbation, from uni- (“uni-”) + Latin verbum (“word”) + French -ation (“-ation”).

Questions about univerbation

What does univerbation mean?
Univerbation means the diachronic process of forming a new single word from a fixed expression of several words.
What is univerbation in Arabic?
Univerbation in Arabic is نَحْت (naḥt). See Univerbation meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is univerbation?
Univerbation is a noun.
How do you pronounce univerbation?
Univerbation is pronounced /ˌjuːnɪvɜː(ɹ)ˈbeɪʃən/.
What is the plural of univerbation?
The plural of univerbation is univerbations.

Words near univerbation in the dictionary

  1. univerbalisms
  2. univerbate
  3. univerbated
  4. univerbates
  5. univerbating
  6. univerbation
  7. univerbations
  8. univerbative
  9. univerbization
  10. univerbizations
  11. univerbize

Source and license

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