Example of polysemantic word

One example of polysemy is the word ‘sound’. This word has a very large number of meanings. It has 19 noun meanings, 12 adjective meanings, 12 verb meanings, 4 meanings in verb phrases, and 2 adverb meanings. A word with an even greater number of meanings is another example, ‘set’.

1. Which one is an example of Polysemous words?
2. What are Polysemous words?
3. What are Polysemantic words?
4. What is Homonymy and examples?
5. What are homonyms give 5 examples?
6. How do you use polysemy in a sentence?
7. What is Oronyms?
8. What are words with two meanings called?
9. What is a word with two meanings called?
10. What predetermines the meaning of a Polysemantic word?
11. How does polysemy gain importance in enriching the vocabulary?

Which one is an example of Polysemous words?

English has many polysemous words. For example, the verb «to get» can mean «procure» (I’ll get the drinks), «become» (she got scared), «understand» (I get it) etc. In linear or vertical polysemy, one sense of a word is a subset of the other.

What are Polysemous words?

A polysemous word is a word that has different meanings that derive from a common origin; a homograph is a word that has different meanings with unrelated origins. Polysemous words and homographs constitute a known problem for language learners.

What are Polysemantic words?

Definitions of polysemantic word. noun. a word having more than one meaning.

What is Homonymy and examples?

A homonym is a word that is said or spelled the same way as another word but has a different meaning. «Write” and “right” is a good example of a pair of homonyms.

What are homonyms give 5 examples?

Homonym Examples

• Address — to speak to / location.
• Air — oxygen / a lilting tune.
• Arm — body part / division of a company.
• Band — a musical group / a ring.
• Bark — a tree’s out layer / the sound a dog makes.
• Bat — an implement used to hit a ball / a nocturnal flying mammal.

How do you use polysemy in a sentence?

4. As a pervasive semantic phenomenon across languages, polysemy has been given a systematic and extensive study, but there is not much attention shown to spatial polysemous words. 5. Its polysemy makes it a key concept articulating different fields such as new media technology, popular culture and media economy.

What is Oronyms?

A sequence of words (for example, «ice cream») that sounds the same as a different sequence of words («I scream»). The term oronym was coined by Gyles Brandreth in The Joy of Lex (1980).

What are words with two meanings called?

Homonyms, or multiple-meaning words, are words that have the same spelling and usually sound alike, but have different meanings (e.g. dog bark, tree bark).

What is a word with two meanings called?

A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially awkward, sexually suggestive, or offensive to state directly.

What predetermines the meaning of a Polysemantic word?

1. polysemantic word — a word having more than one meaning.

How does polysemy gain importance in enriching the vocabulary?

A well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but a great advantage in a language. … Therefore at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.

Asked by: Ruben Marquardt

Score: 4.1/5
(16 votes)

Definitions of polysemantic word. a word having more than one meaning. synonyms: polysemant, polysemous word. type of: word. a unit of language that native speakers can identify.

What is polysemy and it Examples?

polysemy Add to list Share. When a symbol, word, or phrase means many different things, that’s called polysemy. The verb «get» is a good example of polysemy — it can mean «procure,» «become,» or «understand.»

How do you use Polysemantic in a sentence?

RhymeZone: Use polysemantic in a sentence. Significant mentions of polysemantic: His paintings have been noted for being polysemantic . …is explained as a misdirected and irrelevant SA as an outcome of the functional deficiency of the polysemantic right-hemispheric way of thinking.

When a word has multiple meanings?

Homonyms, or multiple-meaning words, are words that have the same spelling and usually sound alike, but have different meanings (e.g. dog bark, tree bark).

What are made words examples?

Made-up Words

40 related questions found

There are a lot of polysemantic words in the Russian language. It seemed to be extra difficult for Russian-speaking learners. For example, how to memorize scores of lexical meanings of the word «идти» [iti] (go)? But on the other hand, if you know some polysemantic words – «semantic champions», you can increase your language opportunities and use them in different situations. People don’t like to recall synonyms in colloquial speech. Speech leans toward to speed and simplification that’s why polysemantic words are always necessary.

In the Russian language words with single meaning are mostly related to such groups as plants’, animals’ and professions’ names. The bulk of vocabulary most often has more than one meaning. Words polysemy is a historical phenomenon. As a rule, the older a word is, the more chances to ‘accumulate’ new meanings it has. Some of them have been out of date and went out of everyday use but still are used in literary texts.

For instance, the word «жизнь» [zhizn’] (life) has more than ten active meanings. Let’s look at some of them.

«Жизнь» (life) is:
— existence form of a substance
Никто точно не знает, когда именно на Земле зародилась жизнь. – Nobody knows for sure when life on the Earth dated back.

— state of an organism fr om its birth to death
Жизнь ночного мотылька по сравнению с человеческой — мгновение. – By contrast to human life, night fly’s life is a moment.

— life span of someone or something
Срок жизни современной техники значительно увеличился. – The life span of modern technical equipment increases significantly.

— sum of actions and experience of a person
Жизнь человека — это невероятно долгий путь, в котором есть место и радости и горю. – Human life is an incredibly long way wh ere as joy as grieve take place.

— biography
Жизнь Робинзона была полна приключений. – Robinson’s life was full of adventures.

— reality (in contrast to fantasy)
В жизни я бы никогда не осмелился сесть за руль гоночной машины. – I would never drive a racing car in whole my life.

More than that, «жизнь» – is:
— a way to spend time
— energy
— a living being…
and so on.

Any part of speech can be polysemantic. Thus, for example, the verb «бить» [bit’] is one of the most polysemantic words in Russian. Here are some of its examples:

— punch (exert physical coercion on someone or something)
Боксёр бьет грушу* – A boxer punches the bag.

— get in(to)
Лучи проникали сквозь витражное стекло, раскрашивая** пол цветными бликами – Rays got into stained glass coloring the floor with patchs of light.

— win
Будущий шахматный чемпион в возрасте четырех лет побил своего отца, поставив*** ему мат на пятой минуте игры – Next 4-year chess champion won his own father by giving him mate on the 5th minute of the play.

— shoot
Хобби моего брата — бить по тарелкам из ружья – The hobby of my brother is to shoot a rifle at plates.

— affect strongly
Дедушку уже сутки бил сильный озноб – My grandfather had strong chills for a whole day.

— measure chime
Часы бьют полночь – Clock are chiming midnight.

— signal
На главной площади бьет колокол – The bell rings in the main square.

Pay attention, I haven’t selected the words in the sentences on purpose but there we also have polysemantic words among them:

* «груша» [grusha] (pear/punch bag) – the first meaning denotes fruit, but here the word is used to mean a gymnastic apparatus.
** «раскрашивать» [raskrashivat’] – very figurative verb which has many meanings
*** the verb «ставить» [stavit’] (put) – is also polysemantic.

You can see all variety of Russian polysemantic words in defining dictionaries.

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Most words convey several
concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A
word having several meanings is called
polysemantic,
and the
ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the
term polysemy.

Most English words are
polysemantic.
It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a
language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has
developed in the language.

The number of sound
combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited.
Therefore at a certain stage of language development the production
of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy
becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching
the vocabulary. The process of
enriching the vocabulary does not consist merely in adding new words
to it, but, also, in the constant development of polysemy.

The system of meanings of
any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries,
as more and more new meanings are either added to old ones, or oust
some of them.
So the
complicated processes of polysemy
development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the loss
of old ones. Yet,
the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of
its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and in
this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of the
language’s expressive resources.

Thus, stone
has the
following meanings:

1)
hard compact
nonmetallic material of which rocks are made, a small lump of rock;

2)
pebble;

3)
the woody
central part of such fruits as the peach and plum, that contains the
seed;

4)
Jewellery,
short for gemstone;

5)
a unit of
weight, used esp. to Brit, a unit of weight, used esp. to express
human body weight, equal to 14
pounds or
6.350
kilograms;

6)
a calculous
concretion in the body, as in the kidney, gallbladder, or urinary
bladder; a disease arising from such a concretion.

My brother-in-law, he says
gallstones hurt worse than anything. Except maybe kidney stones.
(King)

The bank became low again,
and Miro crossed the brook by running lightly on the moss-covered
stones.
(Card)

“Here,” she said, and
took off a slim silver necklace with an intricately carved pale jade
stone the
size of a grape. (Hamilton)

Smoke curled lazily from the
brown and gray rock chimney made of rounded river stones.
(Foster)

Ukrainian
земля
is also
polysemantic:

1) третя від Сонця планета;

2) верхній шар земної кори;

3) речовина темно-бурого кольору, що
входить до складу земної кори;

4) суша (на відміну від водного простору);

5) країна, край, держава.

Polysemy
is very characteristic of the English vocabulary due to the
monosyllabic character of English words and the predominance of root
words. The greater the frequency of the word, the greater the number
of meanings that constitute its semantic structure. Frequency −
combinability
− polysemy
are closely connected. A special formula known as Zipf’s
law has
been worked out to express the correlation between frequency, word
length and polysemy: the shorter the word, the higher its frequency
of use; the higher the frequency, the wider its combinability,
i.e. the more
word combinations it enters; the wider its combinability, the more
meanings are realized in these contexts.

The word in one of its
meanings is termed a lexico-semantic
variant of
this word. The problem in polysemy is that of interrelation of
different lexico-semantic variants. There may be no single semantic
component common to all lexico-semantic variants but every variant
has something in common with at least one of the others.

All the lexico-semantic
variants of a word taken together form its semantic
structure
or semantic
paradigm.
The word
face, for
example, according to the dictionary data has the following semantic
structure:

1. The
front part of the head: He
fell on his face.

2. Look,
expression: a
sad face, smiling faces, she is a good judge of faces.

3. Surface,
facade: face
of a
clock, face of a building, He laid his cards face down.

4. Impudence,
boldness, courage: put
a good/brave/boldface on smth, put a new face on smth, the face of
it, have the face to do,
save one’s
face.

5. Style
of typecast for printing: bold-face
type.

Meaning is direct
when it nominates the referent without the help of a context, in
isolation; meaning is figurative
when the referent is named and at the same time characterized through
its similarity with other objects, Cf.

direct meaning	figurative meaning
tough meat head foot face	tough politician head of a cabbage foot of a mountain put a new face on smth.

Differentiation between the
terms primary/secondary
main/derived
meanings
is connected with two approaches to polysemy: diachrpnic
and synchronic.

If viewed diachronically,
polysemy is understood as the growth and development (or change) in
the semantic structure of the word.

primary meaning
→
secondary
meanings

table
―
Old Eng “a flat slab of stone or wood”.→
derived
from the primary meaning

Synchronically
polysemy is understood as the coexistence of various meanings of the
same word at a certain historical period of the development of the
English language. In that case the problem of interrelation and
interdependence of individual meanings making up the semantic
structure of the word must be investigated from different points of
view, that of main/derived, central/peripheric meanings.

An objective criterion of
determining the main or central meaning is the frequency of its
occurance in speech. Thus, the main meaning of the word table
in Modern
English is “a piece of furniture”.

Polysemy is a phenomenon of
language, not of speech. As a rule the contextual meaning represents
only one of the possible lexico-semantic variants of the word. So
polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the
language because the situation and the context cancel all the
unwanted meanings, as in the following sentences:

The steak is tough.

This is a tough problem.

Prof. Holborn is a tough examiner.

When analysing the semantic
structure of a polysemantic word, it is necessary to
distinguish between two levels of analysis.

On the first level, the
semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings.
For example, the semantic structure of the noun fire
could be
roughly presented by this scheme (only the most frequent meanings are
given):

Figure 2

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In order to convey this or that information,a person uses words, each of which has its own lexical meaning. That is, a kind of idea that is in the mind of the speaker. Thanks to him, one person understands or does not understand (if he makes another sense) of another.

All the variety of vocabulary can be divided into single-valued and polysemantic words. Examples in the Russian language of the latter are the subject of the proposed article.

A bit of theory

There are fewer single-valued words. These include:

• various terms — colon, gastritis, kilogram;
• proper names — Volga, Elena, Penza;
• newly appeared in the language — briefing, pizzeria, gadget;
• possessing a narrowly subject meaning nouns — binoculars, trolley bus, melon.

Having more than one meaning is many-valued words of the Russian language, exampleswhich we will discuss in more detail. They are much more and understand what meaning the speaker puts in them, it is possible only in the context of the phrase. If you open an explanatory dictionary, you can see that the same concept belongs to several descriptions or articles numbered in numbers. For example, the word «take» can detect 14 values, and «go» — 26.

Any part can be multivaluedspeech: verbs, nouns, adjectives. The only exception is numerals. Acquaintance with the named theme children begin in 4-th class where they learn to distinguish homonyms and polysemantic words in Russian.

Examples (4th grade)

Acquaintance of children with a new topic is organized on the example of a specific word. So, if you consider the noun «button», then it can find three values:

1. A stationery pins the paper against a table or wall.
2. The bell button serves to click on it. Then a melody or beep will be heard.
3. The button on the dress or other clothes serves as a buckle.

What is important here? What distinguishes polysemantic words? Examples in Russian clearly demonstrate that they must have a similarity on some basis. And the truth, the button in all cases is a small round object that serves to connect things with each other.

Homonyms are words that have similarities inwriting, but have a completely different meaning. For example, «braid». A noun can mean an agricultural implement and, at the same time, a female hairdress.

Let us consider other examples with different parts of speech. Nouns:

• Sleeve — a piece of clothing; the water flow separating from the main channel; pipe for the removal of gases or liquids, for example, a fireman.
• Comb — cocking; comb; the top of the mountain.
• Brush — part of the hand; an accessory of the artist; fruits of mountain ash; the end of the shawl.

Verbs:

• Shut up — hide in a pillow; immerse oneself in reading.
• Collect — thoughts, harvest, things, evidence.
• Was born — idea, daughter, thought.

Adjectives:

• Heavy — character, period, suitcase.
• Sour — facial expression, apple.
• Gold — earrings, words, hands.

Many-valued words: examples in Russian, Grade 5

At an older age, students comprehend thatsuch a direct, as well as portable meaning of the word. The thing, the phenomenon or its sign, most often associated with a specific concept and used in different contexts, is the first option. Widely used values ​​can also be more than one. For example, the word «bread». It is considered in two aspects:

• Like a grain. This year will be an excellent harvest of bread.
• As an article. The store was closed, so at the table yesterday’s bread was eaten.

With a portable particle of direct valuepasses on to another object or phenomenon on the basis of some similarity. For example, the word «father». Means a person who brings up a son or daughter. When the father is called the father of the unit commander, it is assumed that he is surrounded by parental soldiers by parental care. And in this case we are dealing with a portable value.

Let’s consider other examples in the proposed table:

Nominative and characterizing significance

What else are complex words for understanding? Examples in the Russian language show that it is required to distinguish a nominative and characterizing their meaning. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand the information transmitted by the author of the phrase.

According to VV Vinogradov, the nominative meaning is associated with the reflection of reality and freely (easily) combined with other words. Consider this with the example of the word «father»:

• My father returned from work. We have a direct nominal value.

It will be nominative in the following version:

• The father of a hydrogen bomb. Only in a figurative sense, as before.

But in the phrase, which has already been considered in the text, the meaning will be not only portable, but also characterizing:

• Commander — father of the native. The word seems to transfer certain features to the concept of «commander.» Which ones? Caring, attentive, understanding.

Extended value

This is another importantmany-valued words (examples in Russian will be given below). In this case, a certain characteristic is vested in a whole concept or a large number of people or objects. For example, the title of the book «Fathers and Sons» implies that the word «father» hides a whole generation of people united on the basis of age.

More examples of multi-valued words with extended meaning in sentences:

• Bread — the whole head (head).
• Ice cream — shine (shine).
• Always need to beat first (beat).
• To be, not to seem (to be, to seem).
• People who have a hard life.

So, the studied words can always be found inexplanatory dictionary. The latter confirms that there are more than single-valued ones, and they attach special colors to the presentation of thoughts. They are actively used by writers, where much is built on the play of words and attentive attitude to the context of the phrase.

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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).