polysemy

polysemy

English

Etymology

polyseme +‎ -y

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒ.lɪ.siː.mi/, /pə.ˈlɪ.sɪ.mi/

Noun

polysemy (usually uncountable, plural polysemies)

1. (semantics) The property of a word, sign or symbol that can represent multiple similar meanings.
   • 2011, Brigitte Nerlich, Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language, page 3:

     Fifty years ago the linguist and semanticist Stephen Ullmann wrote that polysemy, the fact that some words have a network of multiple but related meanings, is "the pivot of semantic analysis" (Ullmann 1957 [1951]: 117).

Antonyms

• monosemy

Related terms

• polysemic
• polysemous

Translations

ability to have multiple meanings

Albanian: polisemi (sq) f Armenian: բազմիմաստություն (hy) (bazmimastutʿyun) Azerbaijani: Cyrillic: полисемия Roman: polisemiya Basque: polisemia Belarusian: полісемія f (pólisjemija) Breton: liessteriegezh f Bulgarian: полисемия f (polisemija) Catalan: polisèmia (ca) f Chinese: Cantonese: 多義性 (do1 ji6 sing3) Mandarin: 一詞多義／一词多义 (yīcí duōyì), 多義性／多义性 (zh) (duōyìxìng) Crimean Tatar: çoqmanalılıq Czech: polysémie (cs) f Danish: polysemi (da) c Dutch: polysemie (nl) f Esperanto: polisemio Finnish: polysemia (fi), monimerkityksisyys (fi) French: polysémie (fr) f Galician: polisemia (gl) f Georgian: პოლისემია (ṗolisemia), მრავალმნიშვენლიანობა (mravalmnišvenlianoba) German: Polysemie (de) f, Mehrdeutigkeit (de) f Greek: πολυσημία (el) f (polysimía) Hungarian: poliszémia (hu) Ido: polisemio (io) Indonesian: polisemi (id) Irish: ilchiallachas m Italian: polisemia (it) f Japanese: 多義性 (たぎせい, tagisei) Kazakh: полисемия (polisemiä) Korean: 다의성 (ko) (dauiseong) Kyrgyz: полисемия (polisemiya) Latvian: polisēmija f Lithuanian: polisemija f Macedonian: полисемија f (polisemija) Norwegian: Bokmål: polysemi m Nynorsk: polysemi m Persian: چندمعنایی‎ (fa) Polish: polisemia (pl) f, wieloznaczność (pl) f Portuguese: polissemia (pt) f Romanian: polisemie (ro) f Russian: полисеми́я (ru) f (polisemíja), многозна́чность (ru) f (mnogoznáčnostʹ) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: полисѐмија f Roman: polisèmija (sh) f Slovak: polysémia f, mnohoznačnosť f Slovene: polisemija f, večpomenskost f Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: polysemija f Upper Sorbian: polysemija f Spanish: polisemia (es) f Swedish: polysemi (sv) c Turkish: çokanlamlılık Ukrainian: полісемія f (polisemija), багатозначність (uk) f (bahatoznačnistʹ) Uzbek: Cyrillic: полисемия (uz) (polisemiya) Roman: polisemiya (uz)

See also

• homonymy