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For example, in the definition "An elephant is a large gray animal native to Asia and Africa", the word "elephant" is the definiendum, and everything after the word "is" is the definiens. [7] The definiens is not the meaning of the word defined, but is instead something that conveys the same meaning as that word. [7]
A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. [1] Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. [2]
Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men"). During the Renaissance, scholars meticulously enumerated and classified figures of speech.
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning words have by themselves, [4] for example as defined in a dictionary. It maintains a consistent meaning regardless of the context , [ 5 ] with the intended meaning of a phrase corresponding exactly to the meaning of its individual words. [ 6 ]
The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary. [6] There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or ...
Narrowly circular definitions simply define one word in terms of another. A broadly circular definition has a larger circle of words. For example, the definition of the primary word is defined using two other words, which are defined with two other words, etc., creating a definitional chain.
Word has a variety of meanings, and our understand of ideas such as vocabulary size differ depending on the definition used. The most common definition equates words with lemmas (the inflected or dictionary form; this includes walk, but not walks, walked or walking). Most of the time lemmas do not include proper nouns (names of people, places ...