n
A book containing the first principles of grammar; (by extension) a book containing the rudiments of any subject or art.
n
(uncountable, linguistics, grammar) Rules that exist in many languages that force some parts of a sentence to be used or inflected differently depending on certain attributes of other parts.
n
(linguistics) A pattern by which more than one construct is possible, as with "Alice cooked Bob dinner" and "Alice cooked dinner for Bob".
n
The insertion of one word within another, as in "underdarkneath" (James Joyce).
n
(linguistics) A word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.
n
A text in which all words share a common character; the inverse of a lipogram.
n
(linguistics) The most specific term in a language that describes the terms in some given set.
n
(grammar, obsolete) A noun (broadly speaking) which has no distinction of cases; an indeclinable noun.
adj
(linguistics, sociolinguistics, of a language or dialect) Constituting a standard; being standardized; having the social, political, or legal status of a standard language
n
(in discussions of grammar, especially of Biblical grammar) A figure of speech that is an abbreviated expression, for example, the omission of "good" from "good morning!" (resulting in the abbreviated greeting "morning!").
n
(linguistics, translation studies) A word or phrase in a language formed by word-for-word or morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a word in another language.
n
(linguistics) A type of formal grammar of natural language syntax.
n
(linguistics) A phonological unit of expression that has no inherent meaning
n
(linguistics) A basic unit of a sign language; equivalent to a phoneme.
n
(computer science, linguistics) A containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars. From least to most specialized, the classes are: recursively enumerable, context-sensitive, context-free, and regular.
n
(computing theory) A context-free grammar in which the right hand side of any production rule consists of either one terminal symbol or two non-terminal symbols (neither of which is the start symbol) or the epsilon (i.e. null string) symbol, but only if the left hand side is the start symbol. (Note: this is the full-fledged version, whereas the previous definition may be said to be defining Chomsky reduced form.)
n
(linguistics, translation studies) A sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance (i.e., the statistically significant placement of particular words in a language), often representing an established name for, or idiomatic way of conveying, a particular semantic concept.
n
(sociolinguistics) A language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.
n
(linguistics) The system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language, as opposed to its actual use in concrete situations (performance), cf. linguistic competence.
n
(linguistics) The composition of a grammatical structure in terms of the components it contains, without regard to their arrangement.
adj
(grammar) Of a language: having a relatively fixed style of grammar where the subject of a sentence is outside the finite verb phrase but the object is inside it.
n
(linguistics) A situation in which different phonological or grammatical rules lead to similar or related outcomes.
adj
(linguistics) (Of a grammar) which generates sentences in stages, in such a way that at any intermediate stage, any piece of the sentence is enough to determine the corresponding piece at the next stage; that is, the stagewise transformation at a point does not depend on the rest of the sentence
n
(computing theory) A formal grammar in which every production rule is such that the left-hand side is exactly one non-terminal symbol and the right-hand side is zero or more terminal symbols and/or nonterminal symbols.
n
(formal theory) A language generated by a context-free grammar.
adj
(linguistics, of a grammar) Involving transformations that are affected by more of the sentence than merely the section under scrutiny.
n
(formal language theory) A formal grammar in which the left-hand sides and right-hand sides of any production rules may be surrounded by a context of terminal and nonterminal symbols.
n
(linguistics) A set of concepts whose names are coordinate terms.
n
(linguistics, pragmatics) A theory of how listeners and speakers cooperate to communicate with language.
n
(linguistics) A semantic or syntactic feature that has no morphological implementation but is crucial for the construction and understanding of a phrase.
adj
(grammar) Of or pertaining to deixis; to a word whose meaning is dependent on context.
n
(computer science) An approach to formalizing the meanings of programming languages by constructing mathematical objects called denotations which describe the meanings of expressions from the languages.
n
(linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
n
(linguistics) An ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts.
n
The basic form of a word used as a dictionary entry (of any part of speech, but especially of a verb).
n
(obsolete) A grammar; a primer.
adj
(linguistics) Of a language: such that the grammatical marks showing relations between the constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents.
n
(linguistic morphology) A morph with a surface phonetic realization but no meaning, as contrasted with a zero morph, which has a meaning but no phonetic realization.
n
(linguistics, rhetoric) an expression that refers to something in the same text.
n
(linguistics) The original or earlier form of an inherited or borrowed word, affix, or morpheme either from an earlier period in a language's development, from an ancestral language, or from a foreign language.
n
(linguistics, more narrowly) A word or phrase, belonging to a distinct word class or having distinct morphosyntactic properties, with semantic symbolism (for example, an onomatopoeia), variously considered either a synonym, a hypernym or a hyponym of ideophone.
n
(grammar) A grouping of words which maintain grammatical context in different usages; the particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech.
n
(computer science) A precise mathematical description of a formal language, consisting of terminal symbols, nonterminal symbols, a nonterminal symbol serving as start symbol, and a set of production rules that control the expansion of nonterminal symbols into strings consisting of both terminal and nonterminal symbols.
n
(linguistics, computing, mathematics) A formal expression of a grammar; a formal grammar; a set of rules of syntax that, without reference to semantics, determine whether a sequence of symbols is a well-formed sentence in a given formal language.
n
(grammar) A language unit that has morphological function.
n
A particular linguistic construction; a turn of phrase.
n
The frequency by which an opposition occurs or becomes relevant in a language.
n
(linguistics, countable) A system of rules that can generate all and only those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language.
n
A structuralist linguistic theory that defines the glosseme as the most basic unit of language.
n
The study of the development of language.
n
The genesis of language, i. e. the emergence of a system of verbal communication from proto-linguistic or non-linguistic means of communication.
n
(grammar, linguistics) The relationship between a word and its dependents.
n
Alternative form of gramarye. [(obsolete) Grammar; learning.]
n
(obsolete) Grammar; learning.
n
A system of rules and principles for speaking and writing a language.
n
(rare) The technical jargon associated with grammar.
n
The principles or practices of grammarians.
n
Unwarranted concern for observing the rules of grammar (especially of the most standard form of a language).
n
(archaic) Alternative spelling of grammar. [A system of rules and principles for speaking and writing a language.]
n
(obsolete) The rudiments or first principles, as of grammar.
n
(linguistics) Part of speech.
n
(linguistics) (of language) The state or attribute of obeying the rules of grammar; grammatical correctness.
n
(obsolete) A principle of grammar; a grammatical rule.
n
(dated) A point or principle of grammar.
n
(linguistics) (of language) the existence of analyzable grammatical structure
adj
(linguistics, rare) Relating to grammar and syntax.
n
(linguistics) A unit of grammar.
adj
(linguistics, of a sentence) Consisting of a single word, such as "Go." or "Whatever."
n
(linguistics) an analytical unit making up the set of all entities of a text referring to the same object in reality or the same object in the text.
adj
(grammar) Employing or relating to hypercorrect grammar.
adj
(linguistics, philosophy) Having the character of pointing to, or indicating, a particular state of affairs.
n
(linguistics) The hypothesis that, for adult second language learners, acquiring grammatical properties and interfacing between them (for example, between syntax and semantics) should not be problematic, but that interfacing between these and an external component, such as pragmatics or discourse information, will prove to be very difficult.
n
(linguistics, especially phonology) The total set of a (specified) linguistic feature (within a language etc.)
n
(translation studies) A language gap, which occurs when there is no direct translation in the target language for a lexical term found in the source language.
n
(especially linguistics of Greek) A word acquired through formal education rather than through childhood language acquisition.
n
(psycholinguistics) The theoretical abstract conceptual form of a word, representing a specific meaning, before the creation of a specific phonological form as the sounds of a lexeme, which may find representation in a specific written form as a dictionary or lexicographic word.
n
(linguistics) A specific inflected form of a word; compare lexeme.
n
(linguistics) A unit of language such as word or multi-word expression (e.g. "steam iron"), understood as a set of inflected forms and not one particular inflected form, with a meaning that cannot be understood from the meanings of separate components.
n
(linguistics) The property of being a lexeme.
n
Alternative form of lexie (unit of reading) [(literary theory) A minimal unit of reading, such as a sentence or sentence fragment]
adj
(linguistics) Denoting a content word as opposed to a function word
n
(linguistics) A linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question, such as noun or verb.
n
(linguistics) A set of cognate words or morphemes in two or more related languages, where regular sound correspondences occur between the phonemes contained in the words.
n
The meaning of a word in actual usage by speakers of a certain language.
n
(semantics) A term—word or a sequence of words—that acts as a unit of meaning, including words, phrases, phrasal verbs and proverbs, exemplified by cat, traffic light, take care of, by-the-way, and don't count your chickens before they hatch.
n
(programming) The property of being lexically scoped.
n
(linguistics) The study of how the words of a language denote either things in the real world or concepts.
n
(semantics) A pairing of a word or phrase with one of its meanings.
n
The theory that grammatical information is rooted in the lexicon of a language.
n
(linguistics) The continuity between grammar and lexis.
n
The study of word meanings and their relationships.
n
(linguistics) Any unit of linguistic structure, such as a phoneme, a morpheme, or a whole phrase.
n
any of range of units of language, whether a word, phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph, whole conversation or a story, morpheme, grapheme, phoneme and syllable
n
A word directly taken into one language from another one with little or no translation.
n
(linguistics) A unit of word recognition, encapsulating a variety of properties about a given word, such as its appearance, sound, and meaning.
n
(linguistics) A reflexive pronoun with discourse antecedents; i.e. a reflexive pronoun whose antecedent does not occur in the sentence itself.
n
A culture in which communication tends to be explicit, with little reliance on context or shared understandings to convey meaning.
n
(linguistics) A word or morpheme used in combination with a numeral to indicate the count of nouns, used especially in Asian languages.
n
(linguistics) A group of grammatical systems that make meanings of a related kind.
n
(uncountable) The study of systems of grammar.
n
(linguistics) A pragmatic communications model in neuro-linguistic programming.
n
(linguistics) A non-literal expression with a relatively fixed lexicogrammatical form and specific semantics and pragmatics, associated with metaphoric language.
n
Language that characterizes or describes the pragmatic function of some speech.
n
(logic) A symbol or string of symbols belonging to a metalanguage and standing for elements of some object language.
n
(linguistics) A modal form, notably a modal auxiliary.
n
(linguistics) The inflection of a verb that shows how its action is conceived by the speaker; mood
n
The grammatical principles of the Modistae.
adj
Pertaining to a mononym.
n
(linguistics) A univerbation; a polylectic term merger.
n
(linguistics) A single word that functions as a phrase
n
An approach to natural language semantics based on formal logic.
n
(grammar, linguistics) A recurrent distinctive sound or sequence of sounds representing an indivisible morphological form; especially as representing a morpheme.
n
(linguistic morphology) The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning.
n
(linguistics) The property of being a morpheme.
n
(linguistics) The study of morphemes, or of the morphemic structure of a language.
n
(linguistics) The study of the internal structure of morphemes (words and their semantic building blocks).
n
(linguistics) A unit of morphology.
n
(linguistics) One of the units of which the underlying representations of morphemes are composed.
n
(music) A musical grammar which arises spontaneously in a musical culture (as opposed to an artificial grammar).
adj
(lexicography) (Of a lexical item) contained within a dictionary entry as a subordinate term of the main headword.
n
(grammar) In the work of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943): a group of words expressing two concepts in one unit (such as a clause or sentence).
n
(linguistics) An irreducible unit of meaning; the semantic component of a glosseme.
adj
(dated) Customary; ordinary; applied to the usual spelling of a language, in distinction from strictly phonetic methods.
n
(linguistics) A linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints.
n
(linguistics) The restrictions a language applies to the positions and patterns of graphemes in written words.
n
(linguistics) A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.
n
(syntax) An ordered, rooted tree (data structure) that represents the syntactic structure of a string according to some context-free grammar.
n
(linguistics) The effect the terms used by a speaker can have on another speaker and their emotions and responses.
n
(computational linguistics) A word, usually an adjective, which can be defined as "of or pertaining to" another word.
n
(linguistics) A sound that, because it appears in a number of words of similar meaning, has a recognizable semantic association.
n
(linguistics) The property of being a phrase.
n
(linguistics) An utterance, consisting of multiple words or morphemes, at least one of whose components is selectionally constrained or restricted by linguistic convention such that it is not freely chosen.
n
(linguistics) A fixed expression within a language, regarded as a phraseological unit.
n
Study of set or fixed expressions.
n
The way a statement is put together, particularly in matters of style and word choice.
n
(linguistics) A phenomenon of syntax whereby a focused expression takes an entire encompassing phrase with it when it is "moved".
n
(linguistics) A unit of content that is the minimal meaningful unit
n
(linguistics) A lexical item that can appear only in environments associated with a particular grammatical polarity.
n
(linguistics) A phrase that acts like a single word.
n
(linguistics) A portmanteau word.
n
(linguistics) A word that is no longer in use, but has been reconstructed from current ones.
n
(linguistics) The practice of prescribing idealistic norms, as opposed to describing realistic forms, of linguistic usage.
n
(historical) A series of preliminary rhetorical exercises originated in Ancient Greece, aiming to prepare students for writing declamations after they had completed their education with the grammarians.
n
(grammar) The preservation of the properties of lexical items while generating the phrase structure of a sentence. See Projection principle.
n
(linguistics) A unit of speech or text that respects the phonotactic restrictions of a language, but is not part of the lexicon
n
(linguistics) The descendant of an earlier language element, such as a word or phoneme, in a daughter language.
n
(chiefly linguistics, obsolete, rare) In the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834): the doctrine or study of arranging words into sentences clearly.
n
An experimental form of language based on verbs.
adj
(linguistics, syntax) Making use of satellite-framing.
n
(linguistics) The region of an utterance to which some modifying element applies.
n
(linguistics) an indivisible unit of meaning.
n
(linguistics) In such writing systems as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a phono-semantic character that provides an indication of its meaning; contrasted with phonetic.
n
(linguistics) The smallest unit of meaning; especially, the meaning expressed by a morpheme.
n
(linguistics) A word or other linguistic form borrowed from a classical language into a later one, but partly reshaped based on later sound changes or by analogy with inherited words in the language. These words occur, for example, in the Romance and the Indo-Aryan languages.
n
(linguistics) Communication between people who use different languages and thus may be unable to express and share concepts in great depth.
adj
Of or relating to a sentence or sentences.
n
Within a conceptual metaphor, the conceptual domain from which metaphorical expressions are drawn.
n
(sociolinguistics) Synonym of standard language
n
(grammar) The original Chomskyan model of generative grammar, based around two different representations of a sentence (deep structure and surface structure) linked by transformational grammar.
n
(grammar) A unit of language smaller than a morpheme.
n
(linguistics) A substrate.
n
(linguistics) Any suprasegmental feature of language.
n
(linguistics) The apparent etymology of a term based on components occurring in the modern form of the language, such as earth + -en for earthen, which actually occurred in Old English as eorthene.
adj
(linguistics) of a language, employing a system of syntax where the subject of a sentence precedes the verb, which is followed by the object.
n
(linguistics) The study of the structure of phrases, sentences, and language.
n
(linguistics) A basic semantic-syntactical element of a language
n
(archaic, grammar) Syntax.
n
(grammar, tagmemics) The smallest functional element in the grammatical structure of a sentence.
n
(linguistics) The tenor of a metaphor.
n
(linguistics) A primitive feature of grammar, akin to a phoneme in phonology.
n
The set of terms actually used in any business, art, science, or the like; nomenclature; technical terms.
n
(grammar) The stem of a word.
n
(information science) A hierarchy of subject headings — canonic titles of themes and topics, the titles serving as search keys.
n
(linguistics) A generative grammar, especially of a natural language, developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars (as opposed to dependency grammars), and involving the use of defined operations called transformations to produce new sentences from existing ones.
n
(grammar) A rule that takes an input and changes it in some restricted way to result in a surface structure.
adj
(linguistics) Chiefly in transformative-generative: of or relating to a theory of generative grammar in which defined operations called transformations produce new sentences from existing ones; transformational.
n
(phonology) A property of a morpheme: the abstract form that the morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it.
adj
(linguistics) In violation of one or more of the rules and conventions of a language as defined by the grammar, resulting in unacceptable or incorrect usage.
n
A single name by which a person or thing is known.
n
(linguistics) A hypothetical innate abstract system in the human brain that underlies the grammar of all human languages.
n
An original or primal word; a proto-word.
n
(linguistics, lexicography) One of a set of words or other linguistic forms that conveys the same meaning or serves the same function.
n
Measure of lexical diversity.
n
(linguistics) A linguistic form class whose members are words.
n
(linguistics, lexicography, language teaching) A set of etymologically related words consisting of a single word with its inflections and derivations, such as walk, walked, walks, walking, walkings, walker, walkers, walkies, walkable, walkathon.
n
The ordering of the syntactic constituents of a language.
adj
(linguistics) of or pertaining to word formation; morphological
n
Eye dialect spelling of word. [The smallest discrete unit of spoken language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more phonemes and one or more morphemes]
Note: Concept clusters like the one above are an experimental OneLook
feature. We've grouped words and phrases into thousands of clusters
based on a statistical analysis of how they are used in writing. Some
of the words and concepts may be vulgar or offensive. The names of the
clusters were written automatically and may not precisely describe
every word within the cluster; furthermore, the clusters may be
missing some entries that you'd normally associate with their
names. Click on a word to look it up on OneLook.
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Today's secret word is 7 letters and means "No longer existing; died out." Can you find it?