Semantics

//sɪˈmæntɪks// noun, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words. countable, uncountable

    "Holonym: linguistics"

  2. 2
    the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text wordnet
  3. 3
    The study of the relationship between words and their meanings. countable, uncountable

    "In fact, nowadays a lot is known about the semantics of natural languages, and it is surprisingly easy to build semantic representations which partially capture the meaning of sentences or even entire discourses."

  4. 4
    the study of language meaning wordnet
  5. 5
    The meaning or set of meanings of a linguistic element, such as a word, morpheme or utterance. countable, uncountable

    "In very ancient or poorly documented languages, the precise semantics of words tend to be uncertain."

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    The meaning or set of meanings of a linguistic element, such as a word, morpheme or utterance.; The meanings of individual words, as opposed to the overall meaning of a passage. countable, uncountable

    "The semantics of the terms used are debatable."

  2. 7
    The meaning of computer language constructs, in contrast to their form or syntax. countable, uncountable

    "file sharing and locking semantics"

  3. 8
    Pettiness or triviality. broadly, colloquial, countable, uncountable

    "Who cares? This is all just semantics!"

Etymology

From French sémantique, displacing earlier semasiology. From Ancient Greek σημαντικός (sēmantikós). By surface analysis, semantic + -ics.

Next best steps

Mini challenge

Unscramble this word: semantics