polysemy

English

Wikipedia

Noun

polysemy (uncountable)

1. (semantics) The ability of words, signs and symbols to have multiple meanings.

   [...] polysemy, which is the greedy habit some words have of taking more than one meaning for themselves. Erin McKean, speech at TED.

Antonyms

• monosemy

Related terms

• polysemic
• polyseme
• polysemous

Translations

ability to have multiple meanings

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一詞多義 (cmn), 一词多义 (cmn) (yīcí duōyì)

• Czech: polysémie (cs) f
• Dutch: polysemie (nl)
• Finnish: polysemia (fi), monimerkityksisyys (fi)

• French: polysémie (fr) f
• German: Polysemie (de) f
• Hungarian: poliszémia (hu)
• Italian: polisemia (it) f
• Russian: полисеми́я f

See also

• homonymy