Colexification

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The linguistic pattern whereby multiple meanings can be expressed by the same word (or a pair of homonymous words). countable, uncountable

    "Languages may be compared in their patterns of colexification – that is, their ability to encode two distinct senses using the same lexeme."

Example

More examples

"Languages may be compared in their patterns of colexification – that is, their ability to encode two distinct senses using the same lexeme."

Etymology

By surface analysis, co- + lexi- + -ification.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.