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Semantics
//sɪˈmæntɪks// noun, slang
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words. countable, uncountable
"Holonym: linguistics"
- 2 the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text wordnet
- 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 the study of language meaning wordnet
- 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."
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- 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."
- 7 The meaning of computer language constructs, in contrast to their form or syntax. countable, uncountable
"file sharing and locking semantics"
- 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.
See also for "semantics"
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