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Lexicographers gather samples of written instances where a word is used and analyze them to determine patterns of regional or social usage as well as meaning. A word, for example the English word "donny" (a round rock about the size of a man's head), may be only a rare regional usage, or a word may be used worldwide by standard English speakers ...
A prop-word: one, as in "the blue one" A pro-adjective substitutes an adjective or a phrase that functions as an adjective: so as in "It is less so than we had expected." A pro-adverb substitutes an adverb or a phrase that functions as an adverb: how or this way. A pro-verb substitutes a verb or a verb phrase: do, as in: "I will go to the party ...
Authors writing their texts consider not only a word's denotation but also its connotation. For example, a person may be described as stubborn or tenacious, both of which have the same basic meaning but are opposite in terms of their emotional background (the first is an insult, while the second is a compliment).
The remaining words in a phrase are called the dependents of the head. In the following phrases the head-word, or head, is bolded: too slowly — Adverb phrase (AdvP); the head is an adverb very happy — Adjective phrase (AP); the head is an adjective the massive dinosaur — Noun phrase (NP); the head is a noun (but see below for the ...
A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. [1] Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. [2]
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. [2] For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be ...
Tricolon – the pattern of three phrases in parallel, found commonly in Western writing after Cicero—for example, the kitten had white fur, blue eyes, and a pink tongue. Trivium – grammar, rhetoric, and logic taught in schools during the medieval period. Tropes – a figure of speech that uses a word aside from its literal meaning.