semantics
noun
Form of semantic , plural of semantic.
Simple meaning
The study of the relationship between words and their meanings.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sihmantiksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
sɪˈmæntɪks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The study of the relationship between words and their meanings.
The meaning or set of meanings of a linguistic element, such as a word, morpheme or utterance.
The meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text
linguistics
A branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words.
The meanings of individual words, as opposed to the overall meaning of a passage.
looselycolloquialof a detail or distinction
Pettiness or triviality.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Academic
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The study of the relationship between words and their meanings.
Used this way, semantics is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in relationships contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Relationships
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use semantics
- “We need to consider the semantics of the new policy's wording.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Study / meaning
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Of or relating to meaning or the study of meaning.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The branch of semantics that studies the cognitive aspects of meaning.
The branch of semantics that studies the cognitive aspects of meaning.
The branch of semantics that studies the logical aspects of meaning.
The branch of semantics that studies the meanings and relations of words.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.