polysemy

incontable

A noun referring to the linguistic phenomenon where a single word or phrase has multiple related meanings, which are distinguished by context.

• 🇪🇸Sustantivo que designa el fenómeno lingüístico por el cual una misma palabra o expresión posee varios significados relacionados entre sí, que se distinguen según el contexto.

1. Multiple meanings of a word C1 formal

   The capacity for a word, phrase, or sign to have multiple related meanings, often arising from historical or contextual shifts.

   • The word 'bank' is a classic example of polysemy, referring to a financial institution or a river's edge.
   • Linguists study polysemy to understand how language evolves and how context disambiguates meaning.
   • Polysemy is common in everyday language, where a single word like 'run' can have dozens of related senses.

   🇪🇸polisemia

   Sinónimos: ambiguityequivocationlexical ambiguity

• polysemies plural form
• polysemies' possessive plural form
• polysemy's possessive singular form