Word of the Day:
deixis
What It Means
The use of a word, such as a particle or pronoun, to refer to something that must be identified from the immediate physical, temporal, or grammatical context; a word used in such a way.
Deixis allows for economy of speech but may introduce ambiguity in recorded speech when referring to something physical.
Deixis in Context
“Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterances. It means 'pointing' via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this 'pointing' is called a deictic expression. When you notice a strange object and ask, 'What's that?', you are using a deictic...”
Did You Know?
From Ancient Greek δεῖξις (deîxis, “pointing, indicating, reference”), from δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “I show”).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: deixis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “deixis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deixis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
