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In psycholinguistics, semantic processing is the stage of language processing that occurs after one hears a word and encodes its meaning: the mind relates the word to other words with similar meanings. Once a word is perceived, it is placed in a context mentally that allows for a deeper processing.
to select, designate; esp. to publicly select for a special honour from one's peers as in the (possibly apocryphal) American Indian ceremony ("She was tapped for the position of CEO") and as in being designated a college fraternity pledge. vulgar slang for "have sex with" (object usually "that"; e.g. "I'd tap that") tart female prostitute
A contronym is a word with two opposite meanings. For example, the word original can mean "authentic, traditional", or "novel, never done before". This feature is also called enantiosemy , [ 1 ] [ 2 ] enantionymy ( enantio- means "opposite"), antilogy or autoantonymy .
Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. [1] Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. [2] When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings ...
Auto-antonymy: Change of a word's sense and concept to the complementary opposite, e.g., bad in the slang sense of "good". Auto-converse: Lexical expression of a relationship by the two extremes of the respective relationship, e.g., take in the dialectal use as "give".
Long cuts of deep fried potato, usu. thick cut resembling American steak fries : French fries, in (orig. UK) phrase fish and chips: thin slices of fried potato*(UK: crisps) chippie, chippy carpenter (slang); fish-and-chip shop (slang) (Ire: chipper) (adj.; chippy only) aggressively belligerent, especially in sport loose woman (dated slang);
Every day (two words) is an adverb phrase meaning "daily" or "every weekday". Everyday (one word) is an adjective meaning "ordinary". [48] exacerbate and exasperate. Exacerbate means "to make worse". Exasperate means "to annoy". Standard: Treatment by untrained personnel can exacerbate injuries.
Complementary antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite but whose meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum (push, pull). Relational antonyms are word pairs where opposite makes sense only in the context of the relationship between the two meanings (teacher, pupil). These more restricted meanings may not apply in all scholarly ...