Plesionymy
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being close but not identical in meaning, as with the words "overcast" and "cloudy". uncountable
"The line between plesionymy and cognitive synonymy can be drawn with some precision. However, the limits of plesionymy in the opposite direction along the scale of synonymity are more difficult to specify; as the semantic distance between between lexical items increases, plesionymy shades imperceptibly into non-synonymy."
Example
More examples"The line between plesionymy and cognitive synonymy can be drawn with some precision. However, the limits of plesionymy in the opposite direction along the scale of synonymity are more difficult to specify; as the semantic distance between between lexical items increases, plesionymy shades imperceptibly into non-synonymy."
Etymology
From plesionym + -y.
More for "plesionymy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.