A word that has 2 meanings is called

When words are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings, then they are called homonyms. When they are just spelled the same but sound different and have different meanings, then they are homographs. Here are some of the most popular homonyms and homographs in the English language.

Can a person be ambiguous?

If you are referring to something that is unclear, then it is ambiguous, but when you are referring to a person’s mixed feelings or attitude, then it is ambivalent. Now that we learned about the differences between the two words, we won’t be ambivalent about how ambiguous their meanings are.

What are 20 examples of homonyms?

List of homonyms in English.

• Address – Address.
• Band – Band.
• Bat – Bat.
• Match – Match.
• Mean – Mean.
• Right – Right.
• Ring – Ring.
• Rock – Rock.

What are 2 words that sound the same?

Homonyms are two words that are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings. The word “homonym” comes from the prefix “homo-,” which means the same, and the suffix “-nym,” which means name.

What are the 20 examples of Homographs?

20 example of homograph

• Bear – To endure ; Bear – Animal.
• Close – Connected ; Close – Lock.
• Lean – Thin ; Lean – Rest against.
• Bow – Bend forward ; Bow – Front of a ship.
• Lead – Metal ; Lead – Start off in front.
• Skip – Jump ; Skip – Miss out.
• Fair – Appearance ; Fair – Reasonable.
• Quail – Cower ; Quail – Bird.

What are 100 homonyms examples?

100 homonym words list to learn how they differ in their meanings when they have the same sound….Homonym Words List.

Arm
“The company arm of the separatist group”	I can’t hold the baby on my arm
Well done! You did a good job.	The well water always cold.

Is back a Homograph?

Homograph definition: In English, homographs are words with the same spelling but having more than one meaning. … Taking the stricter definition of homograph, we will review some homographs words that are often confused. Homograph examples: back–back.

Is nail a Homograph?

Answer: Homographs are words with multiple meanings, or two definitions for one word. Nails and a hammer are used to build things. Each finger and toe has a nail on it.

Is read a Homograph?

The words read, rede, reed sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Why do read, rede, reed sound the same even though they are completely different words? The answer is simple: read, rede, reed are homophones of the English language.

Is live a Homograph?

A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but crucially has an alternative pronunciation and meaning. … An example of a homograph is “Live”.

Is duck a Homograph?

The word homonym means, roughly, “same name.” According to the Oxford English Grammar, homonyms are “distinct words that happen to have the same form.” And they’re pronounced the same, too. So when you see a duck and when you duck your head, those are homonyms.

What is a Homograph word?

: one of two or more words spelled alike but different in meaning or derivation or pronunciation (such as the bow of a ship, a bow and arrow)

What is the Homograph of fine?

Answer. Homographs are the words which are spelled in the same way but have different meanings. Fine is also a homograph because we use the words for different meanings such as, in one aspect we use fine as well or good and in the other aspect we use fine as minute or tiny particles.

Is Bass a Homograph?

Homographs are words that have the same spelling but different meanings, whether they’re pronounced the same or not. Bass (the fish, rhymes with class) and bass (the instrument, rhymes with ace) are homographs.

Is Bass pronounced base?

Because language is wonderfully insane 🙂 The musical term “bass” is not only pronounced like “base“, but also it means “base” (as in “low”), and indeed is essentially the same word. … This word was brought into Latin in two closely related forms: “basis” (meaning “base“) and “bassus” (meaning “low”).

Why is bass spelled bass?

basson, comparative of bathys “deep.” So bass in the musical sense has its origins in base, and the current spelling is influenced by the Italian basso. In other words, the spelling changed out from under the pronunciation. Bass as in a bass guitar is indeed pronounced the way you say.

Is tear a homonym or Homograph?

a word that has the same spelling as another but a different meaning and history. Homographs are often pronounced differently from each other. In the sentence, “She shed a tear over the tear in her dress,” the two words spelled “t-e-a-r” are homographs.

What English word has the most meanings?

set

What are the two meanings of tear?

1a : to separate parts of or pull apart by force : rend. b : to wound by or as if by pulling apart by force : lacerate tear the skin. 2 : to divide or disrupt by the pull of contrary forces a mind torn with doubts.

How is tear spelled?

When you tear something, you rip it apart. You might tear a hole in your jeans if you catch them on something sharp, or you might tear up that love letter you wrote to your crush. … Another word, tear — what you do or produce when you cry — is spelled the same but pronounced to rhyme with peer.

What are the 3 types of tears?

Three Types of Tears Book Now

• Did you know there are three different kinds of tears? They are called the basal tear, the emotional tear, and the reflex tear. …
• Basal Tears. This tear is more complex, having three different layers. …
• Emotional Tears. These are the tears made when one is overcome with emotion. …
• Reflex Tears.

Which noun is tears?

noun. /tɪr/ [usually plural] see tear1. a drop of liquid that comes out of your eye when you cry A tear rolled down his face. She left the room in tears (= crying).

Are tears crying?

Crying or weeping is the shedding of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, pain or a physical irritation of the eye. Emotions that can lead to crying include sadness, anger, and even happiness.

Can you run out of tears in a day?

Cry all you want — you won’t run out of tears According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), you make 15 to 30 gallons of tears every year. Your tears are produced by lacrimal glands located above your eyes. Tears spread across the surface of the eye when you blink.

Our language is multifaceted and rich. Sometimes, using this or that word, we do not think about the boundaries of its meaning. We know that the Earth is the name of our planet, and the earth is part of its surface, land, soil. Also, everyone knows that the world is the entire system around us and at the same time the world is the absence of enmity, life without war. Some of the semantic interpretations we express are the same lexical units, which are words with several meanings. Let’s find out why this happens.

Why are there words in the language that have several meanings?

Another linguist AA Potebnya, who lived in the XIX century, wrote in his monograph «Thought and Language» that the development of human speech goes in the direction of greater abstraction.

When our distant ancestors learned how to express theirdesires and emotions with the help of sounds, they did not yet know what the geometry and Mendeleyev’s table were, they did not distinguish between the concepts «bad» and «terrible», «good» and «excellent.» The first words called objects, phenomena and feelings, the ability to identify and express which was necessary in everyday life. Similarly, children who are only learning to speak, at first use simple words such as «mom», «dad», «house», «table», and only then understand what kindness, joy, hatred, anger means.

In the course of development, an ancient person has the ability tofigurative and analytical thinking, it became necessary to come up with new designations for the new concepts. Sometimes as such notations used already existing words in the language, which, however, was given a new meaning. But the original meaning of these words was preserved. So many words appeared that have several meanings.

How correctly to name lexemes with several meanings

In linguistics, a word with several meanings,is called multivalued. This is the term of Russian linguistics, and in foreign science such words bear the names of polysemantic (from the Greek polis — «many», and semanticos — «signifying»).

Russian Academician V. V. Vinogradov called multivalued the ability of one word to convey various information about objects and phenomena of extralinguistic reality. In this case, it should be said that the meaning embedded in the word, its real-semantic envelope is called a lexical meaning. Above, examples of the interpretation of words with several lexical meanings are given. However, very few people know that the word «peace» has not two, but seven values! Check it can be on the explanatory dictionary Ozhegova.

Polysemy and homonymy

In linguistics, as in any other science, there isconcepts that are among the discussion. So, for example, AA Potebnya and R. Jakobson believed that words with several meanings do not exist, because if a lexeme under some circumstances began to designate another object or phenomenon, then it completely changed its semantic core.

However, in the traditional grammar, the concepts of polysemy and homonymy are still different, although they are often confused in Internet resources.

It is believed that words that have several meanings,still retain in each interpretation their semantic center, some representation that lies at the very root of the structure of the lexical unit. It is assumed that polysemantic words have a continuity of meanings, while homonyms do not. For example, a crane and a crane in the kitchen, the note «salt» and the kitchen salt are homonyms, and not many-valued words, because there is no semantic connection between them.

How does the ambiguity of words

It is believed that polysemy occurs in three main ways:

• By metaphorical transfer. A metaphor is a shift in the meaning of a word, based on the similarity of several objects. For example: wheat grain is the seed of truth.
• With the help of metonymy. By metonymy we mean the transfer of the meaning of one word to another according to the principle of the presence of semantic connections between two concepts. For example: a dish of expensive porcelain — a delicious dish of French cuisine.
• With the help of a synecdoche. Many linguists believe that a synecdoche is a special case of metonymy. By this term we mean the transfer of the name of the part to the whole. For example: «home» instead of «home» and «returning home from America» ​​instead of «returning to Russia» (if you mean exactly coming to your country, and not specifically to your home from someone else’s house).

Examples of polysemantic words

We can assume that the name of our planet -Earth — appeared again from the name of land, soil. After all, people and mammals exist on land, it is their real habitat. And the name of our planet was formed by means of metonymic transfer, that is, the designation of a part of the surface was transferred to the whole. We also say, for example, that the class listens attentively to the teacher, meaning by this not the room, but the students in it.

We call raspberries, as well as bush, onwhich they grow. Polysemy here developed on the principle of synecdoche. But the vernacular meaning of the word «raspberry» — «thieves’ stash» is, rather, homonymous to the other two examples of its use.

What does the word «prefix» mean?

Can you at once say — one or morevalues ​​has the word «prefix»? From the school course of the Russian language, everyone knows that the so-called part of the word preceding the root and serving to change the meaning of the lexical unit is called. This noun is formed from the verb «pestering» and actually calls everything that is «attached», that stands next to something.

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language two meanings of this word are noted:

• tape recorder, amplifying the sound power;
• morpheme, prefix;
• 10-15 years ago, a prefix for a virtual game was called a prefix.

Language puns based on polysemy and homonymy

In every developed language there are words that coincidein form, but different in meaning. The combination of such lexical units in one text is used to create a comic effect, play puns. Try to explain what the comic effect of the following phrases is based on:

• Mowed oblique oblique oblique.
• He stoked the stove all night. By the morning she drowned.
• Parrot us, parrot.
• He learned the verse and the verse.

In the above phrases, the comic effect is basedon the homonymy of certain forms of words. But the vocabulary forms of these lexical units are different. So, in the first example, the words «mow», «oblique», «braid» are used. «Oblique» as an adjective means «uneven,» «curve,» and «oblique» as a noun is a colloquial name for a hare. The second example uses the ambiguity of the word «sink»: kindle the fire, immerse deeply in the water. In the third example, homonyms are used: a parrot as a noun — the name of a bird, a parrot as an imperative from the verb «scare». And finally, in the fourth example, the pun is based on the coincidence of the past tense form of the verb «subscribe» and the noun in the nominative «verse» (a line in poetry).

It is not always easy to understand one or morevalues ​​have words. The root of lexemes and the analysis of usage contexts can help to determine whether the units under consideration are multivalued or homonymous.

Exercise on the interpretation of the meanings of many-valued words

Task: look at the list below and try to determine by yourself, one or more values ​​have the highlighted words: wardrobe, fox, machine, path, hand, core. Explain your choice. How many values ​​did you have for each word?

All of the above words have several lexical meanings:

• Wardrobe refers to clothing items, as well as the room where they are stored.
• The fox is an animal and at the same time a cunning person. The ambiguity developed due to the fact that in ancient times (and in the villages — now) foxes at night, when no one sees them, they penetrated into people’s dwellings and barns to steal food.
• The machine is both a vehicle and technical equipment.
• The path is both a road on earth, and air communication, and metaphorically a person’s life.
• The hand is part of the body and handwriting.
• The core is both the central part of something, and the basis of any movement, for example, of the army.

Several tasks for logic

Look at the phrases below. Can you guess what unites:

1. the post of diplomat and salting;
2. radiation of the sun and the estate of aristocrats;
3. marital relations and poorly made products;
4. a strip of land in the sea and the pride of a Russian beauty;
5. river fish and a dishwashing brush.

Answers: the ambassador; shine; marriage; spit; ruff.

What do you think, which of the above examplesbelong to homonymy, and which ones — to polysemy? Words with several meanings differ from homonyms by the presence of some logical-semantic connection between different concepts. In example 2, the connection is based on a metaphor: how the sun illuminates the earth, so aristocrats, because of their education and development, were the adornment of society. And in Example 5, the connection between the fish and the brush is based on metonymy, so the external shape of the brush resembles a fish. Examples under numbers 1, 3, 4 are based on homonymy.

Thus, we found out that a word havingseveral values, is called multivalued, or polysemantic. But it is desirable to be able to distinguish ambiguity from homonymy. If there is any semantic connection between words with several meanings, then there are no semantic links between them.

5.1. Polysemantic and monosemantic words. Classification

5.2. Diachronic approach to polysemy.

5.3. Synchronic approach to polysemy.

5.4. The semantic structure of correlated words in English and Russian.

5.5. The national character of the semantic structure.

5.1. Polysemy is the ability of words to have more than one meaning. A word with several meanings is called polysemantic. Monosemantic words, which have only one meaning, are comparatively few; they are mainly scientific terms (e.g. hydrogen) or rare words (e.g. flamingo).

The bulk of English words are polysemantic. All the meanings of a polysemantic word make up a system which is called the semantic structure of the word.

e.g. The word TABLE has the semantic structure made up of at least 9 meanings:

1) piece of furniture;

2) the persons seated at a table;

3) (sing.) food put on the table;

4) a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.;

5) (pl.) slabs of stone;

6) words cut into them or written on them (the Ten Tables);

7) an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.;

part of a machine tool on which work is put;

9) a level area, a plateau.

5.2. Polysemy can be viewed diachronically and synchronically.

The system of meanings of a polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over centuries, as new meanings are added to old ones or oust some of them. As a result, the total number of meanings grows, and the vocabulary is enriched.

Thus, polysemy viewed diachronically is a historic change in the semantic structure of a word that results in disappearance of some meanings and appearance of new meanings, and also in the rearrangement of the meanings in the semantic structure.

Diachronically, we distinguish between the primary meaning and secondary meanings of a word.

The primary meaning is the oldest meaning of the word, its original meaning with which the word first appeared in the language,

e.g. the primary meaning of TABLE is » slabs of stone»: O.E. tabule f. Lat tabula.

All the other meanings appeared later than the primary meaning.

When we describe a meaning as secondary we imply that it can’t have appeared before the primary meaning; when we say a meaning is derived we imply not only that but also that it is dependent on another meaning and subordinate to it,

e.g. TABLE 1, 2, 3 are secondary, appeared later than TABLE 5;

TABLE 2, 3 are derived from TABLE 1.

The main source of polysemy is semantic derivation (radiation of meanings; adding new meanings to the existing ones).

Polysemy may also result from homonymy. When two words coincide in sound-form, their meanings come to be felt as making up one semantic structure.

e.g. the human EAR (f. Lat auris) and the EAR of corn (f. Lat acus, aceris) diachronically are homonyms. Synchronically, however, they are perceived as two meanings of one polysemantic word ear. The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphoric meaning (Of.: the eye of a needle, the foot of the mountain) and thus, as a derived meaning of the word. Cases of this type are comparatively rare.

5.3. Viewed synchronically, polysemy is understood as co-existence of several meanings of the same word and their arrangement in the semantic structure.

The status of individual meanings is not the same. We distinguish between the central (=basic, major) meaning and minor meanings.

How do we determine which meaning is the basic one?

(1) The basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts. It is representative of the word taken in isolation, i.e. it occurs to us when we hear/see the word in isolation; that is why it is called a free meaning.

e.g. the central meaning of TABLE is » a piece of furniture» Minor meanings occur only in specific contexts, e.g. to keep the table amused (TABLE 2) or the table of contents (TABLE 7).

(2) The basic meaning has the highest frequency in speech,

e.g. TABLE 1 has the highest frequency value and makes up 52% of all the uses of the word; TABLE 7 accounts for 35%; all the other meanings between them make up just 13% of all the uses.

(3) The basic meaning is usually stylistically neutral and minor meanings are as a rule stylistically coloured,

e.g. YELLOW 1) coloured like egg yoke or gold (neutral),

2) sensational (Am slang),

3) cowardly (coll).

Synchronically, we also distinguish between direct meanings and figurative (transferred) meanings,

e.g. YELLOW 4) (fig) (of looks, mood, feelings, etc.) jealous, envious, suspicious.

We should note that a word may have two or more central meanings,

e.g. GET » obtain» and » arrive» are equally central in the semantic structure.

As the semantic structure of a word is never static, the status (type) of its meanings may change in the course of time. The primary meaning may become a minor one; a secondary meaning may become the central meaning of a word.

e.g. The primary meaning of QUICK is » living»; it is still retained in the semantic structure but has become a minor meaning which occurs only in some expressions: to touch/ wound to the quick, the quick and the dead; » rapid, fast» has become the central meaning.

5.4. Words of different languages are said to be correlated when their central meanings coincide,

e.g. table – cтол » piece of furniture»;.

But there is practically no one-to-one correspondence between the semantic structures of correlated polysemantic words of different languages. The relations between correlated words are quite complicated, and we may single out the following cases (and show them graphically).

The semantic structures of two correlated words may coincide; usually they are monosemantic words,

e.g. flamingo.

We can show this relationship like this: two overlapping circles.

If the number of meanings is different, the semantic structure of one word may include that of its correlate it is the relationship of inclusion,

e.g. MEETING 1) a gathering of people for a purpose

2) the people in such a gathering

3) the coming together of two or more people, by chance or arrangement

МИТИНГ a (political) gathering of a number of people»;.

Some meanings of two correlated words may coincide and the others don’t. This is the relationship of intersection.

e.g. BOY МАЛЬЧИК

1) male child 1) male child,

2) young man 2) apprentice (obs.),

3) male native servant,

4) junior sailor.

5.5. All lexical meanings of a polysemantic word are interconnected. The relations beween them are based on various logical and psychological associations. Some of these relations are common to all or to many languages; others are peculiar to a particular language. Thus, a semantic structure has a national character (some specific characteristics).

Relations that are common to all/most languages are:

1) metaphorical relations,

e.g ass ¹ » animal» — осёл ¹ » animal»,

ass ² (fig) » stupid person» — осёл² » person»;.

2) metonymic relations,

e.g. table ¹ » piece of furniture» — стол ¹ » piece of furniture»,

table ³ « food « – стол ³ « food put on (1) «;.

Relations typical of English, but not of Russian are:

1. One and the same English verb may have both transitive and intransitive meanings in its semantic structure,

e.g. Paper burns easily. (intr) Cf.: гореть,

She burnt his letters, (tr) жечь.

2. One word has countable and uncountable, concrete and abstract meanings,

e.g. his love of painting Сf.: живопись — the paintings on the wall картина,

coal — a coal, hair — a hair.

3. In the same semantic structure we find individual and collective meanings,

e.g. YOUTH 1) young people collectively Сf.: молодежь,

2) a young man – юноша,

3) the state of being young — юность.