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Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian period [1] 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 ...
Verbal irony is "a statement in which the meaning that a speaker employs is sharply different from the meaning that is ostensibly expressed". [1] Moreover, it is produced intentionally by the speaker, rather than being a literary construct, for instance, or the result of forces outside of their control. [ 19 ]
For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), [1] [2] sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms.
A broadly circular definition has a larger circle of words. For example, the definition of the primary word is defined using two other words, which are defined with two other words, etc., creating a definitional chain. This can continue until the primary word is used to define one of the words used in the chain, closing the wide circle of terms.
In logic, equivocation ("calling two different things by the same name") is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word or expression in multiple senses within an argument. [1] [2] It is a type of ambiguity that stems from a phrase having two or more distinct meanings, not from the grammar or structure of the sentence. [1]
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). [1] [2] Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitions (which try to list the objects that a term describes). [3]
For example, a word can have several word senses. [3] Polysemy is distinct from monosemy, where a word has a single meaning. [3] Polysemy is distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two or more words (such as bear the animal, and the verb bear); whereas homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy ...