Definition of a word with many meanings

What are polysemous words? Is it easy to understand someone if they say ‘did you get the bat?’ Polysemy refers to a single word with more than one meaning. The multiple meanings are listed under one entry in a dictionary. An example of polysemy is the word dish. If we took a look at the dictionary we see that dish has multiple definitions, or polysemous meanings, under one entry:

• It’s your turn to wash the dishes = a kind of plate.
• How long does it take to cook this dish? = a meal.

Wing (noun)

The term polysemy, or polysemous words, comes from the Greek words poly and sēma which together mean ‘many signs’. The opposite of polysemy is monosemy. Monosemy is when one word has only one meaning.

Polysemy is related to homonymy (one word that has multiple meanings but is pronounced and/or spelt the same). Additionally, because polysemous words have more than one meaning, they can cause lexical ambiguity. This can happen when someone hears/reads something without the same frame of reference or contextual information as the speaker/writer. For example, ‘Let’s go to the bank!’ isn’t clear. Does this mean ‘a river bank’ or ‘a financial institution’?

1. He has served his time in prison.
2. The free food is served to homeless people only.
3. This old bike has served me well.
4. The new mall will serve the community well.
5. My mom served in the medical corps.

All five sentences use the same verb serve. Although each sentence carries a different sense of serve, they all imply the same meaning of ‘giving service’:

1. He has served his time in prison → spend some time (in prison).
2. The free food is served for homeless people only → provide.
3. This old bike has served me well → be useful.
4. The new mall will serve the community well → provide.
5. My mom serves in the medical corps → work as.

Serve is then a very good example of polysemous words. Some other examples of polysemy include:

• Verb: get — receive, bring, move/travel.
• Noun: bank — of a river/canal, a place to deposit money, a slope.
• Adjective: light — colours, not heavy, not serious.

Polysemy examples in literature

How can we analyse polysemic examples in literature? Take a look at this excerpt from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1623) (Act 5, Scene 3) below and analyze the polysemous meaning of the word gallery:

The word gallery has several different polysemous meanings:

1. A long corridor to exhibit works of art in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses.
2. (In a theatre) the highest of such projecting platforms, containing the cheapest seats.
3. A crypt or a catacomb.

• Refers to a word with multiple meanings.
• Are listed under a single dictionary entry.
• Must stem from the same word class, eg noun-noun: mouse (an animal — computer device), wings (parts of birds for flying — part of a building), beam (a line of light — a piece of wood).

Homonymic words

• Refers to words with different meanings but with the same pronunciation and/or spelling.
• Are listed under multiple dictionary entries.
• Can be verb-noun combination: to address — an address, to rock — a rock, to park — a park.

Polysemy vs. homonymy

What is the difference between polysemic words and homonymy? Take the word address.

First, analyse the multiple meanings and word class. Address has two meanings and two different word classes:

Second, if the words have multiple forms (multiple entries in a dictionary), eg a verb and noun, they are homonyms. If the two words stem from a single form (one entry in a dictionary), eg a verb or noun, they are polysemies. The word address has two word forms: a verb and a noun. This proves that address is a homonym.

To explain the difference between polysemous words and hyponymic expressions, let’s take the word mouse.

Polysemy describes one word with more than one meaning.

Because the word mouse has multiple meanings it can cause lexical ambiguity: «Do you mean the animal mouse or the computer device?» Hyponymy describes a super and subordinate relationship between words.

Through our examples of polysemy, we see that a house mouse and a field mouse aren’t the two different meanings of a mouse. Both types of the singular mouse refer to one thing, the animal.

From the perspective of hyponymy, the mouse that is the computer device isn’t a kind of the animal mouse. It is a mouse (the connotative meaning of mouse = polysemy).

Bring me the mouse!

¹ A. Sabatier, Shakespeare and Visual Culture, (2016).

Words
are able to have more than one meaning, the structure of such words
is viewed in terms of polysemy. Polysemy
(from
Greek polus
– ‘many’ and sema
– ‘meaning’) means a plurality, diversity of meanings, the
existence within one word of several connected meanings as the result
of the development of its original meaning. The bulk of English words
are polysemantic ones, e.g. horse
1. an
animal …
7. (slang)
heroine. For the first 1,000 of the most frequent words registered in
the New English Dictionary 25,000 meanings are numbered. Monosemantic
words are few in number, they are mostly terms: liquidity,
adhocracy,
benchmarking.

Polysemy
is more characteristic for English as compared with Russian, due to
fixed stress and reduction of glammatical suffixes, as a result, the
predominance of root words. For example, the word man
has more than 10 meanings (See Table 4):

Table 4.

The
system of meanings of
any
polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries.
These complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the
appearance of the new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the
general tenden­cy with the English vocabulary at the modern stage
of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and to
provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of the expressive
resources of the language.

Lexico-semantic
variant
is one of the individual meanings of a polysemantic word. They are
registered in dictionaries as different meaning of one and the same
word. The number of lexico-semantic variants makes a lexeme. Lexeme
is a word in all its meanings and forms, i.e. a word as a structural
element of language (invariant). LSVs are cases of content variation
within a word deprived of formal expression. There’s a
contradiction: lexico-semantic variant is a unit of content in
language, but it becomes a unit of expression in speech. For example,
saw
– пила,
пилить;
видел.

The
semantic structure of a word
is a structured set of interrelated lexico-semantic variants (the
major (or basic) meaning of a word and the minor (derived) meanings).
The semantic structure of a word is the system and hierarchical unity
of all the types of meaning that a certain word possesses. In
ordinary conversation we can draw a borderline between LSVs without
difficulty considering valency, syntactic function, paradigmatic and
morphologic (number, case, etc.) peculiarities: I
ran
home (intransitive
verb) VS
I ran
this office (transitive
verb).
To define the semantic structure of a word means to establish the
order of chaining and subordination of nonhomogeneous meanings and
define the means of semantic discrimination between LSVs within one
word. For example:

GEAR

1.
in cars etc [uncountable and countable] the machinery in a vehicle
such as a car, truck, or bicycle that you use to go comfortably at
different speeds: His
mountain bike had 18 gears.
Andy drove cautiously along in third gear.

2.
[uncountable and countable] used to talk about the amount of effort
and energy that someone is using in a situation: During
this period,
Japan’s export industries were in top gear (=were as active as they
could be).

3.
American
English
to start doing something in a different way, especially using more or
less energy or effort: The
boss expects us to be able to change gear just like that.

4.
equipment [uncountable] a set of equipment or tools you need for a
particular activity: He’s
crazy about photography — he’s got all the gear.
We’ll need some camping gear.

5.
clothes [uncountable] a set of clothes that you wear for a particular
occasion or activity: Bring
your rain gear.

6.
machinery [uncountable] a piece of machinery that performs a
particular job: the
landing gear of a plane,
heavy lifting gear.

7.
drugs [uncountable] British
English
informal a word meaning illegal drugs, used by people who take drugs.

Diagram
3.

The
semantic structure has national character. The semantic structure of
correlated words of two different languages can never cover each
other. The major meaning is in most cases identical in two languages
but others usually differ. The meaning ‘the machinery in a vehicle’
can be found both in the English word gear
and in its Russian equivalent “привод,
шестерня”
but the meaning ‘clothes’ can’t be found in the word привод.

Radial
polysemy
is the type of polysemy in which the primary meaning of a word stands
in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays.
Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. Diagram
4 below shows this type of polysemy.

Diagram
4.

In
the word tube
the primary meaning is ‘1) a long hollow and typically cylindrical
object, used for the passage of fluids or as a container: tubes
of glue,
toothpaste,
mayonnaise’.
Each
secondary meaning developed directly from the primary one.

2)
any hollow cylindrical structure or organ in the body:
Eustachian tube,
Fallopian tube,
the bronchial tube;

3)
in electronics another name for valve: electron
tube,
cathode-ray tube,
television tube (>
tube (TV)
– ellipsis,
e.g.
YouTube);

4)
slang
a bottle or can of beer: a
tube of lager.

Chain
polysemy
is the type of polysemy in which the secondary meanings of a word
develop like chain. In such cases it may be difficult to trace some
meanings to the primary ones. This type of polysemy can be
represented with the help of Diagram 5.

Diagram
5.

In
the word crust
the primary meaning is 1) ‘the hard brown outer surface of bread:
sandwiches
with the crusts cut off’.
Out of this meaning its secondary meanings are 2) ‘the baked outer
part of foods such as pies or pizzas: a
thin crust pizza’,
3) ‘a thin hard dry layer on the surface of something: A
hard gray crust had formed on the bottom of the tea kettle’,
4) ‘the hard outer layer of the Earth: deep
within the Earth’s crust’.

Radial-chain
(mixed)
polysemy is
a combination of radial polysemy and chain polysemy. Here the
configuration of a diagram depends on the word semantic structure,
hence there’s a great variety of diagrams illustrating this type of
polysemy. The meanings of the word gear
make the polysemy of this type.

Due to the achievements of the
componential analysis attempts have been made to establish the
relationships between different meanings of a polysemantic word on
the basis of a common semantic component through which they are
connected with each other in synchrony. From this viewpoint there are
three kinds of relations between the meanings of a polysemantic word:
intersection, inclusion and semantic homonymy.

In
case of intersection
all meanings have one common semantic component which unites them,
and at the same time each meaning has its own semantic part which is
its differential feature. E.g. the adjective barren
has five meanings:

1)
incapable of producing offspring, seed, or fruit; sterile a
barren tree,
barren soil,
barren woman;

2)
unable to support the growth of crops, etc.; unproductive; bare
barren
land;

3)
lacking in stimulation or ideas; dull a
rather barren play,
barren
discussion;

4)
not producing worthwhile results; unprofitable a
barren period in a writer’s life,
barren scheme;

5)
(followed by of) totally lacking (in); devoid (of) his
speech was barren of wit,

barren
of ideas,
barren of interest.

These
meanings have a common semantic feature ‘not producing’, in which
they are intersected. This type of polysemy can be represented with
the help of Diagram 6.

Diagram
6.

Inclusion
as a type of relationship between the meanings of a polysemantic word
takes place in those cases when one of the meanings is more
complicated and broader than the other: it includes the semantic
features of that meaning and at the same time it has its own semantic
part. The word skinhead
has two meanings:

1) a closely cropped
hairstyle;

2) a member of a group of
White youths, noted for their closely cropped hair, aggressive
behaviour, and overt racism.

Here
the second meaning includes and presupposes the first one. This type
of polysemy can be represented with the help of Diagram 7.

Diagram
7.

Semantic
homonymy
as a type of relationships between the meanings of a polysemantic
words takes place when the meanings have lost a semantic connection
between each other and have no common semantic features, but still
remain to be the meanings of the same polysemantic word. In such
cases the last secondary meanings have nothing to do with the primary
ones, especially if there are very many other meanings between them.
This phenomenon can be illustrated by the word pride.
Its primary meaning is ‘a feeling of deep pleasure or
satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements’. It’s very hard
to find any semantic connection between this primary meaning and one
of its secondary meanings – ‘a group of lions forming a social
unit’ (OxfordDictionary
(En-En) (for ABBYY Lingvo x 3 Multilingual),
which gives grounds for some dictionaries LingvoUniversal
(En-Ru) (ABBYY Lingvo x 3 Multilingual)
to consider them as the meanings of two homonymous words.

Polysemy
is created by social need for economy. Context helps to individualize
the meanings and bring them out, however, it doesn’t create
polysemy, but only reveals it: The
translation has been faithfully made by a distinguished pen.
Must
I walk
the dog now? Do you know how to work
the photocopier?

Context
–
the semantically complete passage of speech sufficient to establish
the meaning of a given word (phrase); the minimal stretch of speech
determining each individual meaning of the word.

Contexts can be of two types:
linguistic (verbal) and extra-linguistic (non-verbal).

Linguistic contexts may be
subdivided into:

• phonetical
  context: there
  is;

• morphological
  context: studied,
  worked,
  listened;

• lexical
  (semantic)
  context
  – a semantic or thematic class of words used in combination with
  the key-word and reflecting the relationships between objects and
  phenomena existing in reality. For example, the meanings of heavy
  can be analyzed through its collocability with the words weight,
  safe,
  table,
  load
  (‘of great weight’); snow,
  wind,
  rain,
  storm
  (‘abundant, striking, falling with force’); industry, artillery,
  arms (‘the larger kind of smth’). More examples, hard
  life,
  hard stone;
  hostile
  looks,
  hostile
  troops.

The
word meaning is established by the context
analysis
method. For example, the noun mouth
is realized in the meaning ‘opening through which animals take food
in; space behind this containing the tongue, etc.’ in combination
with the semantic indicator dog,
which embraces the semantic feature ‘animal’ in its lexical
meaning. The other meaning of the word mouth
‘opening
or outlet’ is realized together with the semantic indicators
bag,
cave,
river,
etc.,
united by the seme ‘inanimate’. Thus, the choice of meaning of
the nucleus word depends on the lexical meanings of the indicating
word;

—
phrasal
(phraseological)
context
– phraseological units in which the constituent words make up one
semantic whole and usually do not realize any of their systemic
(language) meanings but all together render some figurative meaning,
e.g. to
have a bee in one’s bonnet
(‘to have some kind of obsession’), lose
one’s heart to
smb
(‘fall in love with’);

—
syntactic
(grammatical)
context
– syntactic (grammatical) structure that serves to determine
various individual meanings of a polysemantic word, for example,
crooked
(adj)
man
stood in my way VS. The road crooked
(v)
between the hills. The meaning of the verb to
see
– ‘to perceive with the eyes’ is found in the syntactic context
possessing the syntactic structure ‘to see + direct object’:
I shall
see your house.
Another meaning of this verb ‘to accompany or escort’ is observed
in the context of different syntactic structure ‘to
see + direct object + adverbial modifier of place’: I
shall see you
to your
house.

And the meaning ‘take care (of something)’ is realized in the
syntactic structure ‘to see + indirect object with prepositions to
or after’: I
shall see
to
your house.

There
are cases when the meaning of a word is ultimately determined by the
actual speech situation in which the word is used, i.e. by
extra-linguistic
context.
Linguistic context is sometimes not enough to establish the word
meaning, so some misunderstanding takes place, e.g. in
the sentence He
is perfectly sound,
the
meaning of the word sound
is clearly ambiguous as it has two readings
‘financially
secure’ and ‘not damaged, injured, or diseased’. To establish
one of the meanings some extension is required, like …
and has a good credit history.

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Download 500+ English Phrases

A number of English words are spelled the same way and pronounced the same way, but have different meanings.

Easy Vocabulary Words

bark

The noun bark refers to the outer covering of a tree. The verb bark refers to the sound a dog makes.

nails

The hard parts on your fingers and toes are your nails (you can also say fingernails and toenails, more specifically). Nails are also thin, sharp metal pieces used in construction.

jam

The noun jam means a sweet paste made out of fruit. It is also called jelly.

The verb jam means to put something into a space that is too small for it. For example you would jam a week’s worth of clothes into a small backpack.

A traffic jam is when the cars on the road are very slow or stopped.

pool

A pool (or swimming pool) is a man-made area of water, for swimming. Pool also refers to a game where you try to put the colored and numbered balls into the holes around the edges of the table. It can also be called billiards.

mine

The word mine is a possessive adjective. For example, “The blue car is mine.”

Mine is also a noun. It can refer to the place where minerals are dug out of the earth (this activity is called mining, and the people who do it are called miners).

A mine or landmine also refers to a bomb that is buried underground; it will explode when someone steps on it or drives over it. These are used in war.

Intermediate Vocabulary Words

bolt

A bolt is a type of metal fastener. The word bolt is also used for a single ray of lightning (a lightning bolt). Finally, bolt is a verb meaning to run extremely fast.

season

A season (noun) is a period of the year with a particular climate/weather (spring, summer, fall, winter). The verb season means to apply spices or flavorings to food. These spices or flavorings are called seasonings. For example, you might season a chicken before roasting it in the oven.

novel

A novel (noun) is a fictional book of significant length.

The word novel can also be used as an adjective to mean especially new, unusual, or different. For example, a novel approach to solving a problem.

draft

The noun draft refers to a current of air into an enclosed space. For example, if there’s a space under your front door, there will be a draft in the house and it might get cold.

Draft as a noun also refers to a version of a document, plan, or drawing. A rough draft is a version that has not yet been revised, and the final draft is the final version of it.

If a country has a draft, it means the citizens must obligatorily participate in the military. Draft can also be a verb in this case – a person can be drafted to serve in the military.

squash

The word squash refers to a family of vegetables that have hard exterior shells, and we eat the inside part. The picture shows just one type of squash; there are many.

Squash is also an indoor sport played with rackets and a ball.

Finally, the verb squash means to crush something (compress/destroy it with pressure). You would squash a spider if you saw it crawling across your kitchen floor. If you put something heavy on top of your bread when loading your grocery bags, the bread would get squashed.

Advanced Vocabulary Words

buckle

The word buckle refers to a metal clasp, such as one found on a belt. Buckle is also a verb meaning to close/fasten such a clasp. For example, you should buckle your seatbelt when you get into the car. (The opposite is unbuckle).

The other meaning for the word buckle is to collapse, especially under a lot of weight or pressure. For example, a person’s legs might buckle if they faint (become unconscious). If you buckle under the stress or your job, it means you break down emotionally.

current

The adjective current describes something that is modern or happening now.

Current as a noun refers to the direction and speed of flow of a liquid (such as water in the ocean or in a river), gas, or electricity.

harbor

A harbor (noun) is a sheltered area of water that is deep enough so that ships can anchor there.

The verb harbor means to provide shelter. For example, it is a crime to harbor a fugitive (a criminal who is running away from the police or legal authorities). You can also harbor negative feelings such as resentment or a grudge, meaning to keep those feelings alive inside you.

hatch

Hatch (verb) refers to the process of a baby bird coming out of its egg.

A hatch (noun) is an opening in the floor, ceiling, or wall of a ship or aircraft, often having a door on hinges.

racket

A racket is a piece of sports equipment containing a round frame and netting – used in tennis, squash, badminton, and other games.

The noun racket also means loud, often chaotic noise. For example, how can I study when the party next door is making a racket?