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Appendix:Glossary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

This isa glossary of terms (primarily grammatical) used in the body of this dictionary.

See also:

Contents:0–9 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

0–9

1st person
Seefirst person.
2nd person
Seesecond person.
3rd person
Seethird person.

Symbols

*
Anasterisk appearing before a term (an affix, a root, a word, etc.), indicates the term is not attested but reconstructed; for example,*werdʰh₁om is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word forword.
[ ]
Brackets surrounding a quotation indicate that the quotation either contains a mere mention of a term (for example, "some people find the wordmanoeuvre hard to spell") rather than an actual use of it (for example, "we need tomanoeuvre carefully to avoid causing upset"), or does not provide an actual instance of a term but provides information about a related term.

A

a.
"Ante" (Latin for "before"). Hence, a quotation from "a. 1924" is a quotation from no later than the year 1923.
abbreviation
A shortened form of a word or phrase, such as aninitialism,acronym, orclipping.
ablative case
Acase that indicates separation, or moving away from something. It is used alone or with certainprepositions. For example, if English had a fullyproductive case system that included the ablative case, then in the phrasecame from the city, either "the city" or "from the city" would likely be in the ablative. In some languages, such as Latin, this case has acquired many other uses and does not strictly indicate separation anymore.
ablaut
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InProto-Indo-European, or any of its descendants (theIndo-European languages), a system ofvowel alternation in which the vowels that are used in various parts of the word can change depending on meaning. The system is used for purposes ofinflection and word derivation. In the Germanic languages, it forms the basis of thestrong verbs. A specific form of ablaut is referred to as agrade; see for instancezero-grade. Compare alsoumlaut.
absolutive case
Acase used to indicate thepatient orexperiencer of averb's action.
abstract noun
Anoun that denotes an idea, emotion, feeling, quality or other abstract or intangible concept, as opposed to a concrete item, or a physical object.Antonym ofconcrete noun.
abstract verb
In theSlavic languages, a verb of motion whose motion is multidirectional (as opposed to unidirectional) or indirect, or whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative). Also called anindeterminate verb. The opposite type of verb, which expresses a single, completed action, is termed aconcrete verb (or adeterminate verb). Motion verbs in theSlavic languages come in abstract/concrete lexical pairs, e.g.Russianходи́ть(xodítʹ,“togo (abstract)”) vs.идти́(idtí,“togo (concrete)”),бе́гать(bégatʹ,“to run (abstract)”) vs.бежа́ть(bežátʹ,“to run (concrete)”),носи́ть(nosítʹ,“to carry (abstract)”) vs.нести́(nestí,“to carry (concrete)”). English does not make this distinction. For example, "I went to the post office" could be abstract (if I went there and came back, i.e. multidirectional) or concrete (if I am there now, i.e. unidirectional), and different Russian verbs would be used to translate "went" in these two circumstances. In Polish coming back does not cause abstract verbs to be used, only doing something many times (Chodzę do biura. 'I go to the office (every day).' vs.Idę do biura 'I am going to the office (now).') or moving without target (Chodzę po pokoju 'I am walking around the room.' vs.Idę przez pokój. 'I am walking across the room.') does. Abstract verbs are alwaysimperfective inaspect, even with prefixes that are normally associated with theperfective aspect (e.g. Polishprzybiegać).
accusative case, acc.
Acase that is usually used as thedirect object of averb. For example, if English had a fullyproductive case system, thenball in "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the accusative.
acronym
Anabbreviation that is pronounced as the “word” it would spell, such asNATO. Contrast aninitialism.
active voice
Thevoice verb form in which the grammaticalsubject is the person or thing doing the action (cf.passive voice), e.g.The boy kicked the ball. (See alsovoice)
acute accent
Adiacritic mark ( ´ ) used that can be placed above a number of letters in many languages of the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.
AD
Anno Domini. Year-numbering system equivalent toCE.
adaptedborrowing
Aloanword formed with the addition of anaffix to conform the term to the normalmorphology of thelanguage, e.g. Polishnormatywny, borrowed from Frenchnormatif and adapted with Polish-ny. Contrastunadapted borrowings.
adj
Seeadjective.
adjective
A word likebig orchildish that usually serves to modify anoun.
adverb
A word likevery,wickedly oroften that usually serves to modify anadjective,verb, or other adverb.
adverbial
Relating to anadverb. For example, anadverbial participle is aparticiple that functions like an adverb in a sentence.
adverbial clause
A type ofdependent clause that modifies a verb in anadverbial fashion. Examples areWhen my friend arrives, I will take him out to dinner andIf it rains, I will go home (the latter example being specifically aconditional clause).
affix
Abound morpheme added to a word’s stem; aprefix,suffix,interfix, etc. In the narrow sense, a synonym ofsuffix.
agent noun
A noun that denotes anagent that does the action denoted by the verb from which the noun is derived, such as "cutter" derived from "to cut". Such an agent can be either a person or a thing, and eithersentient ornonsentient: thus definitions often begin, "One who, or that which, [does X]."
AHD
TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary. For historical reasons, this abbreviation is sometimes used here to identify a respelled pronunciation that is given inenPR form.
alternative form
In definitions: An "alternative form" of a given word is another spelling of that word which is pronounced differently: for example,killikinick is an alternative form ofkinnikinnick. (A spelling which is pronounced the same is an "alternative spelling": for example,judgement is an alternative spelling ofjudgment.)
As a header: The header "Alternative forms"encompasses both alternative spellings (judgement,judgment;sulphur,sulfur) and alternative forms (killikinick,kinnikinnick), as well as differences in hyphenation (tea-cup,teacup), capitalization (LASER,laser), and other similar differences (naïveté,naiveté).
alus mider
A speech register in theBalinese language.
ambitransitive verb
Capable of being eithertransitive orintransitive depending on usage. For instance,eat andread optionally take adirect object: "I eat daily", "She likes to read" (both intransitive), "Read this book", "I do not eat meat" (both transitive).Ergative verbs (q.v.) are a kind of ambitransitive verb. Compareditransitive verb.
analogy
An etymological process in which a word or form is created after a certain pattern in an attempt to right a perceived irregularity. For example, in English,dove as the past tense ofdive (instead ofdived) is by analogy with strong verbs likedrive →drove andweave →wove.
anaphoricity
Anaphorical pronouns are personal or demonstrative pronouns that refer to an earlier-mentioned person or object. See also:Wikipedia's article onanaphoricity
andap
A speech register in theBalinese language.
anglicisation,anglicization
The modification of a foreign (borrowed) word to make it more English in form.
angryregister
Belonging to the angry linguisticregister, used only when the speaker is angry. This register is quite rare, but is found in theBikol languages of the central Philippines.
animate
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Having areferent that includes a human or animal. Many languages (such as theSlavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using differentinflections or words with animate and inanimate nouns.
antepenultima
The third-to-lastsyllable of a word, before thepenultima.
antonym
A word with a meaning that is the opposite of a meaning of another word. For example,good is an antonym ofbad. Contrastsynonym.
aorist
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A grammatical category ofverbs that is often aperfective past.
apheresis
The removal of a letter or sound from the beginning of a word.
aphesis
The removal of an initial unstressed sound from a word, the process by whichescarp becamescarp. Words derived in this way are called aphetic.
apocope
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Omission of the final sound or syllable of a word without changing its morphological structure or meaning. Occurs in Italian, Spanish, and other languages.
applicative
A grammatical voice or verb form where an oblique argument of the verb is promoted to a core argument.
approximant
Aconsonant sound produced by restricting the air flow through the mouth only slightly, resulting in a smooth sound. In English, the approximants are/l/,/ɹ/,/w/,/j/ (as in the initial sounds ofloo,rue,woo andyou). Approximants are distinguished fromfricatives, in which the air is constricted enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, andplosives, in which the air is blocked completely for a short period of time.
archaic
No longer in general use, but still found in some contemporary texts that aim for an antique style, like historical novels. For example,thee andthou are archaic pronouns, having been almost completely superseded byyou.Archaic is a stronger term thandated, but not as strong asobsolete. (SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.) Whereas an archaic term names a still-extant thing or non-outdated concept, ahistorical term names a former thing or outdated concept.
areal
EnglishWikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
Distributed across multiple languages inhabiting a particular area, due tolanguage contact among them rather than due toinheritance from a common ancestor. The term can be applied either to words (seeloanword) or features of languages such as ingrammar,morphology, andphonology. See alsoWanderwort andstratum.
article
A type ofdeterminer that is used as a grammatical indicator in some languages, and is usually central to the grammar and syntax of that language. In English, the articles are thedefinite articlethe, and theindefinite articlesa andan. Some languages may have more articles, such as the Frenchpartitive articlesdu,de la anddes, while many languages lack articles altogether.
aspect
EnglishWikipedia has an article on:
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A property of a verb form indicating the nature of an action asperfective (complete) orimperfective (incomplete or continuing).
aspirated h
In French, an initial ⟨h⟩ that is treated as aconsonant; that is to say,liaison andelision are not permitted at the beginning of a word with an aspirated ⟨h⟩.
assimilation
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound. This can occur either within a word or between words. See alsodissimilation.
atelic
Theaspect of a verb that denotes an action without a definite endpoint or a goal that is tended towards, or rather an action withcumulative reference (such that the expression for that action may describe two or more actions of that kind that, when combined, still constitute a form of that action); contrasttelic. A kind of telicity distinction can be seen in English when specifying a duration in a (simple past) verb phrase: atelic verb phrases takefor (I built a housefor an hour.She loved mefor years.) (See alsoTelicity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
attributive
See also:Appendix:English nouns § Attributive
  1. An adjective that stands in a syntactic position where it directly modifies a noun, as opposed to apredicative adjective, which stands in apredicate position but which modifies thesubject of theclause. For example, inthe big green house,big andgreen are attributive adjectives, whereas inThe house is big and green,big andgreen are predicative adjectives. Some adjectives are only-attributive likeclose (ina close friend) orplain (inplain nonsense).
  2. A noun or adjective (or phrase) that names a real object with theattributes of another real object. For example, anoun adjunct. This is in contrast to asubstantive noun or adjective, which names a real object that is the actualsubstance named by the noun or adjective.
augment
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  1. In some Indo-European languages, a prefixedvowel (अ-(a-) in Sanskrit,ἐ-(e-) in Greek) indicating a past tense in a verb.
  2. InCeltic languages, especially Old Irish, a preverb, usuallyro-, used to give a verb a resultative or potential meaning.
  3. In certain Bantu languages, amorpheme prefixed to anoun class prefix.
augmentative
A word form expressing large size, importance, intensity, or seniority.
augmentless
(of nouns) Lacking anaugment.
auxiliary verb orauxiliary
A verb that accompanies another verb in a clause. It is used to indicate distinctions intense,mood,voice,aspect or other grammatical nuances. English examples arecan,will,have,be.
avoidance term
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A word standardly used to replace ataboo word.

B

back-formation
A term formed by reinterpretation, orreanalysis of an older term, often by removing an apparent or real prefix or suffix from it; for example, the nounpea arose because the final/z/ sound inpease sounded like a plural suffix. Similarly, the verbedit is a back-formation from the earlier nouneditor. Not to be confused withclipping, which just shortens a word without changing meaning or part of speech.
back vowel
Vowel sound produced in the back of the mouth. Examples in English include /uː/ inrule or /əʊ/ inpole. Contrasts to afront vowel.
backronym
A word that is either not anacronym but is taken to be one and for which a full form is invented byback-formation, or is an acronym and for which an alternative full form is invented by back-formation.
backslang
A form ofslang in which the spelling of words is reversed.
bahuvrihi
Another term for anexocentric compound. Contrasttatpurusa,karmadharaya anddvandva.
barytone
With the stress elsewhere than upon the final syllable. Compare withoxytone,paroxytone, andproparoxytone.
base state
In Luganda, the form of anoun in which there is not aninitial vowel. Contrasttopic state.
BC
Before Christ. Year-numbering system equivalent toBCE.
BCE
Before the Common, Current or Christian Era. Year-numbering system equivalent toBC.AD is expressed asCE. To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC"/"AD" style, check the Gadgets section inSpecial:Preferences (orWT:PREFS if you do not have an account).
blend
A word or name that combines two words, typically starting with the start of one word and ending with the end of another, such assmog (fromsmoke andfog) orWiktionary (fromwiki anddictionary). Many blends areportmanteaus. See alsomerger.
borrowing
Seeloanword.
bound form
A unit of language that can only be used as part of a word, not as a word on its own (such as the English suffix -ly). These typesmorphemes are ‘bound’ in that they are restricted on where and how they are allowed to occur, needing to be attached to a freestanding morpheme in order to exist. Many suffixes are often bound.
bowdlerization
The removal, from a text, of words or phrases that are considered offensive or vulgar.
broadly
Indicates a less precise (wider) use of words; short forbroadly speaking. For most practical purposes, synonymous withloosely. Contraststrict (narrow) senses.

C

c
Seecommon gender.
c., ca.
"Circa" ("about"). Hence, a quotation from "c. 1924" or "ca. 1924" is a quotation from approximately 1924.
calque
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A borrowing by word-for-word translation: aloan translation. For example, the English expressionit goes without saying is a calque (a literal, word-for-word translation) of Frenchça va sans dire, andflea market is a calque of Frenchmarché aux puces(literally“market withfleas”). Contrariwise, the termskyscraper was calqued into French asgratte-ciel(literally“scrapes-sky”). Calques are distinguished fromsemantic loans in that calques are not considered idiomatic expressions at the time that they are coined, whereas semantic loans would have had a pre-existing idiomatic meaning.
case
One of the forms of a noun, used to indicate its function in the phrase or sentence. Examples include:nominative,accusative,genitive,dative.
cat.
Abbreviation forcategory.
Without the period, theISO 639-3 code for the Catalan language.
category
A collection of entries, used to categorize or group entries of words that are similar in syntax (for example, English plural nouns) or in sense (for example, English words pertaining to sports);seeWiktionary:Categorization.
catenative verb
Averb able to be immediately followed by the full or bareinfinitive, orgerund (i.e. non-finite verbs).
→Appendix:English catenative verbs
causative verb
A transitive verb that is derived from another verb, and expresses the act of making someone/something do the action of the base verb. Examples in English are:lay (cause tolie),set (cause tosit) andraise (cause torise). Comparefactitive verbs (e.g.shorten,enslave), which are similar but are derived from adjectives or nouns.
CE
Common, Current or Christian Era. Year-numbering system equivalent toAD. To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC"/"AD" style, check the Gadgets section inSpecial:Preferences (orWT:PREFS if you do not have an account).
censored spelling
A word that is censored possibly as a euphemism, or sometimes to bypass the chat filter, as in Spanishmrd frommierda(“shit”).
cf.
"Confer"; "see"; "compare"  – often used to indicate a word with similar, or opposite meaning.
circumfix
Anaffix containing both aprefixing and asuffixing element existing as a singlemorphological unit. For example, the wordembolden consists ofbold(adjective) circumfixed withem- -en, a variant ofen- -en.
circumlocutory
Refers to a roundabout or indirect way of speaking; the use of more words than necessary to express an idea.
CJK,CJKV
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, (and Vietnamese);CJK characters.
classifier
Seecounter.
clause
A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in thesyntax of asentence, where thehead (or central) word is averb; normally distinguished from aphrase, which is a similar unit where the head word is some otherpart of speech, such as anoun,adjective orpreposition. For example, thesentenceThe man entered the house, which was large and blue contains two clauses, theindependent clauseThe man entered the house and thedependent clausewhich was large and blue (here the dependent clause is specifically arelative clause, although not all dependent clauses are relative clauses).
clipping
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A shortening of a word, without changing meaning or part of speech. Not to be confused withback-formation, which changes meaning, orellipsis, which shortens by omission of whole words. Also differs fromabbreviation, which shortens the written—rather than spoken—form of a word or phrase. See alsoapheresis,apocope.
clitic
A word that attaches to a phrase and cannot be used on its own, such as English-'s. Many languages have cliticpronouns (weak pronouns), which may be contrasted withemphatic orstrong pronouns; for example, English'll is a clitic version ofwill and generally attaches to the preceding word (he'll,a little dab'll do ya).
cognate
Descended from the same sourcelexeme of anancestor language.
coinage
A new word intentionally created with a definite meaning.
collective
Expressing a collection or aggregate of individuals by asingular form.
→Category:Collective nouns by language
collocation
A sequence of words or terms that are used together more often than by chance, i.e. that appears together relatively more often.
colloquial
Denotes words belonging to a spoken or vernacular variety of a language. These words are only properly used in a casual or familiar context. This label is only used with some languages; with others it is treated as a synonym ofinformal. If used,colloquial is stronger thaninformal (a general rule of thumb is that informal words may be used in the running text of a newspaper article, while a colloquial term would likely not appear without quotation marks).
Note: It is a common misconception thatcolloquial somehow denotes "local" or a word being "regional". This is incorrect; the word root forcolloquial is related tolocution, notlocation.
combining form
A particular form of a term which is used as anaffix. For example,Afro- (as in words likeAfrocentric,Afro-American) is thecombining form ofAfrican.
common gender,c
"Of commongender". Some languages have a distinct common gender that combinesmasculine andfeminine but is distinguished fromneuter. In other languages, a "noun of common gender" is a pair of nouns, one masculine and one feminine, that are identical in form, and that have the same sense except that one refers to men and the other to women. Distinguishepicene.
comparable
Of an adjective or adverb: able to be compared, havingcomparative andsuperlative forms that end in-er and-est (adjectives only), or in conjunction with the wordsmore ormost, or sometimesfurther orfurthest. Examples:big,bigger, andbiggest;talented,more talented, andmost talented;upstairs,further upstairs, andfurthest upstairs. Some adjectives are trulyincomparable, such asdaily,additional, andelse. Many other adjectives, such asunique,existential, andbearable are generally considered incomparable, but controversially so, where examples can be readily cited of something being "more bearable" or "most perfect".
comparative
Aninflection, or different form, of acomparable adjective showing a relative quality, usually denoting "to a greater extent" but not "to the ultimate extent". (See alsosuperlative anddegrees of comparison.) In English, thecomparative form is usually formed by appending-er, or using the wordmore. For example, the comparative ofhard is "harder"; ofdifficult, "more difficult".
compound
A word or name that combines two or more words without altering them, such asdishcloth (fromdish andcloth) orhigh school (fromhigh andschool); the latter type is called anopen compound. Compound terms are indicated in etymologies using{{compound}}. (See alsoWT:ETY#Compound.)
concrete noun
Anoun that denotes something tangible or material, such as a person or place.Antonym ofabstract noun.
concrete verb
In theSlavic languages, a verb of motion whose motion is unidirectional and expresses a single, completed action. Opposed toabstract verbs, whose motion is multidirectional or indirect, or whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative). Also called adeterminate verb. Seeabstract verb for more discussion.
conditional mood
Themood of averb used to signify that something iscontingent upon the outcome of something else. The conditional mood in English is normally introduced by the wordwould, as inIf I were rich, I would be happy.
conflation
Seecontamination.
conjugation
Theinflection ofverbs. See alsodeclension.
conjunction
A word used to join other words or phrases together into sentences.
connegative
Averb form used with thenegative verb.
connotation
Thesubjective and nonanalytical meaning (definition) of a word, such as its emotional overtones, as contrasted with itsobjective andanalytical meaning (definition), which constitutes itsdenotation (an example is given there).
consonant
Any sound that is not the dominant sound of asyllable, the dominant sound generally being avowel.
consonantism
The sequence ofconsonants, or the quality peculiar to the consonants of a given word or group of words.
consonant gradation
A form of consonantmutation found in certain, particularly Uralic, languages, which is historically conditioned by the openness of the following syllable.
construct state
In some languages, a grammatical form that is used in construing a noun or adjective with another noun or adjective. In theSemitic languages, the construct form is usually a noun modified by a following noun in a genitive construction. The construct state of such a nounX can usually be translated to English asX of. InPersian, the construct state is typically used for all nouns and adjectives in anoun phrase except the very last.
contamination
Influence of one term on the development of another term whereby they come to have similar meanings or similar sound;conflation. Extreme cases of conflation can result in amerger orblend of two words.
contraction
A word or phrase shortened in speech, sometimes represented in writing with apunctuation mark in place of missing letters (e.g.Englishdonot →don't orRomaniannue →nu-i).
contranym
A term with two opposite meanings.
conversion
The process whereby a new word is created without changing the form, often by allowing the word to function as a new part of speech.
coordinate term
A term that is a different type of the samehypernym (loosely "category").Car andbicycle are coordinate terms to each other, both beinghyponyms of a sharedhypernymvehicle. Although the term can be applied broadly – e.g.car andasteroid are boththings –, such usage is not useful in Wiktionary.
coordinativecompound
Anominalcompound in which the two parts are coordinated and the intended meaning of the compound as a whole is a combination of the two parts. Also known as advandva compound. Examples in English are not common but are found in many other languages, e.g. Greekμαχαιροπίρουνο(machairopírouno,“cutlery”, literally“knife-fork”) and Yiddishטאַטע־מאַמע(tate-mame,“parents”, literally“papa-mama”). Contrastexocentric andendocentric compounds.
copula
A verb that links and equates itssubject with its object; also called alinking verb. The most common copula is the verbto be, but others exist, such asto seem,to appear andto sound. The object of a copula often has special properties. For example, it can be anadjective (John isvery tall, the water runscold) when most verbs require their objects to benouns orpronouns. In addition, in languages withcase distinctions, the object of a copula is most commonly in thenominative case, while the object of other verbs is usually in a different case, such as theaccusative case. Many languages (e.g.Russian,Hebrew, andArabic) use anull copula (i.e. no word at all) in the present tense when English would use the wordsam,are oris.
corpus
Acollection ofwritings, often a large one such as alibraryful ofdocuments in a particularlanguage, and sometimes asubset, such as those from a specificera, a specificdemographic, a specificgenre orregister, or a particularauthor; also, such a collection in the form of an electronicdatabase used forlinguistic analyses.Dictionaries are built using the builders' own command of a language plus reliance on manyquotations (quotes) fromcorpora, which inlexicography are often calledcitations. Wiktionary offers help with finding and citing citations atWiktionary:Quotations/Resources and a deeper list atWiktionary:Corpora.
corruption
A change in the form of a word, expression or text in a non-specific, sporadic or nonstandard way, often as a result ofmisunderstanding,mispronunciation ormistranscription.
Some linguistic scientists avoid using this term forlanguage change because it connotesprescriptive value judgments about language changes that "should have been prevented" or that "havedebased the language." In contrast, linguistic science'sepistemology of language does not hold that apidgin, for example, is "inferior" to the languages from which it was formed. The termcorruption as applied to language change was long widely used, though, even in dictionaries, and is still widely encountered. In many cases, where an older dictionary might say that word X is a corruption of word Y, some newer dictionaries might say that word X is by alteration from word Y.
countable, countable noun,count noun
Describes a noun which can be freely used with theindefinite article (a oran in English) and with numbers, and which therefore has aplural form.Antonym:uncountable ormass noun.
counter
In linguistics, counters,measure words orclassifiers are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of something represented by some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used withmass nouns, and sometimes also withcount nouns. (Comparesingulative.)

D

dated
Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable; for example,wireless in the sense of "broadcast radio tuner",groovy, andgay in the sense of "bright" or "happy" are all dated.Dated is not as strong asarchaic orobsolete. SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.
dative case, dat.
Acase that is usually used as theindirect object of a verb. For example, if English had a fullyproductive case system, thenhim in "She gave him the ball" would most likely be in the dative.
declension
Theinflection ofnouns and words like them, or used together with them (i.e.nominals). See alsoconjugation.
defective
Normally would be expected to have a full set ofinflected forms, but some of the inflections do not exist or are never used. English examples are the defective verbscan andshall, which do not haveinfinitive forms (there is noto can orto shall).
defective spelling
In languages withmatres lectionis (consonant letters representingvowels), the form including no additional ones.
definite
Refers to forms of words that present something as known, identified, or immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of thearticlethe; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectivalinflection. In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as definite are referred to as "weak". In Hungarian, the definite conjugation is used to indicatedefinite objects, includinghim, her, it, them, and the formalyou.
degrees of comparison
Inflections of adjectives and adverbs which allow comparisons. English has threedegrees of comparison:positive,comparative andsuperlative. Some other languages have other degrees, e.g.:comparative superlative,relative superlative,elative.
demonym
Anoun oradjective referring to an inhabitant or native of a specific place. Sometimes the demonym is clearly related to the place name, as in EnglishMexico and corresponding demonymMexican, but sometimes it is not, as in theNetherlands vs.Dutch. Some languages (e.g. most Slavic languages) have different (but typically related) adjective and noun forms of a given demonym, while in other languages (e.g. most Romance languages), they are the same. English is inconsistent in this regard; contrastMexican (either an adjective or noun) withSwedish (adjective) vs.Swede (noun). In some cases in English there is no single-word noun form of a demonym, such asChinese, whose singular form is fully accepted asstandard in modern usage, leading to locutions such asChinese person orperson from China.
denominal
Derived from anoun.
denotation
Theobjective andanalytical meaning (definition) of a word, as contrasted with its emotional overtones, which constitute itsconnotation. For example, the wordsstart andcommence usually have the same denotation (i.e., "begin"), but they often have (subjective) connotational difference (such that a parent might say, "start doing your homework as soon as you finish your snack and bathroom break" but would usually not say "commence doing your homework […]" because it sounds odd in a certain way (out of place in the context, unless emphasizing the word for humor, vocabulary building, or some other special purpose).
dependent
(In Greek and in the Gaelic languages) A verb form which is not used independently but preceded by a particle to form the negative or a tense form.
dependent clause
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Aclause that cannot stand on its own as a completesentence, as opposed to anindependent clause. Also known as asubordinate clause. Logically, a dependent clause modifies a word in another clause in the sentence. Common examples are (1)relative clauses (also known as "adjective clauses" or "adjectival clauses"), which modify nouns (e.g.The manwhom I saw yesterday is leaving today); (2)adverbial clauses, which modify verbs in an adverbial fashion (e.g.When it is time to leave, I will go home), andnoun clauses, which take the place of nouns (e.g.I saidthat my name is John orI suggestedthat he leave).
deponent
(In Greek, Latin, and some Gaelic and Nordic languages) A verb with an active meaning which conjugates in a passive manner.
derived terms
A post-POS heading listing terms in the same language that are morphological derivatives. Confusingly, "derived" is also used in etymology sections to indicate that the term comes from a term inanother language, but is not directlyborrowed orinherited.
derogatory
Seepejorative.
descendants
A post-POS heading listing terms in other languages that have borrowed or inherited the word.
descriptive
Concerninglinguistic description: how a language isin fact used (as evidenced bycorpora), as contrasted with how some people think that itought to be used, which is sometimes different; compareprescriptive. (Also:Wiktionary's policy upholding description.)
descriptivecompound
Anominalcompound in which one part modifies the other, where both parts refer to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Also known as akarmadharaya compound. The intended meaning of the compound as a whole is an extension of the sum-of-parts meaning of the compound. Examples in English are "blackboard" (a type of board which is [often] black) and "houseboat" (a boat which is also a house). Contrastdeterminative compounds, where the modified component but not the modifier refer to the intended meaning as a whole, as in "rainbow" and "footstool". Descriptive compounds are a subtype ofendocentric compounds, which are in turn contrasted withexocentric andcoordinative compounds.
desiderative
A verb form indicating a wish.
determinate verb
In theSlavic languages, another term forconcrete verb.
determinativecompound
Anominalcompound in which one part modifies the other, where the modified component (but not the modifier) refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Also known as atatpurusa compound. Examples in English are "rainbow" (a type ofbow, caused by the rain) and "footstool" (a type ofstool, intended for one's feet). Contrastdescriptive compounds, where both the modifier and modified component refer to the intended meaning as a whole, as in "blackboard" or "houseboat". Determinative compounds are a subtype ofendocentric compounds, which in turn are contrasted withexocentric andcoordinative compounds.
determiner
A noun modifier that expresses the in-context reference or quantity of a noun or noun phrase. Determiners are often considered adjectives, but in fact are not quite the same; for example, in English,big is an adjective, so “the big car” is grammatical while *“He saw big car” is not, butsome is a determiner, so *“the some car” is not grammatical while “He saw some car” is. In English, adjectives cansometimes stand alone without a noun, while determiners nearlyalways can (contrast *“He saw big” with “He saw some”), such that they are sometimes considered pronouns as well as adjectives.
deverbal
A word, often asubstantive, derived from averb. Contrastdenominal.
diachrony
A viewpoint of analysis of a language or phrase within a language which considers thehistorical changes over time which have shaped its state at a given later time. The term is typically used to contrast withsynchrony.
diacritic
A diacritic – also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or an accent – is aglyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. Examples:acute ( ´ ), double acute ( ˝ ),breve ( ˘ ), inverted breve ( ̑ ),cedilla ( ¸ ),diaeresis/umlaut ( ¨ ),macron ( ¯ ),overring ( ˚ ),perispomene ( ͂ ), etc. The main use of a diacritical mark is to change the sound-values of the letters or cadence of a word to which they are added. Examples are the diaereses in the borrowed French wordsnaïve andNoël, which show that the vowel with the diaeresis mark is pronounced separately from the preceding vowel; the acute andgrave accents, which can indicate that a final vowel is to be pronounced, as insaké and poeticbreathèd; and the cedilla under the ⟨c⟩ in the borrowed French wordfaçade, which shows it is pronounced/s/ rather than/k/.
diaeresis
Adiacritic ( ¨ ) placed over avowel letter indicating that it is sounded separately.
dialectal
Of or relating to adialect (which is, for the purposes ofWiktionary's labels, synonymous withvariety).
diminutive
A word form expressing smallness, youth, endearment, unimportance, or contempt. Opposite ofintensive.
direct object
Thenoun or nounphrase that averb is directly acting upon. In some languages direct objects are marked with theaccusative case.
→transitive verb,indirect object
displaced
Of an older word: having been replaced by a newer word.
dissimilation
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A phonological process whereby one of a pair of similar sounds within a word or phrase becomes dissimilar: for example, the shift l…l > r…l in the derivation of Middle Frenchcoronnel from Old Italiancolonnello. It has an opposite effect toassimilation.
ditransitive verb
(of a verb) taking two objects, such asgive in “Give me the ball” (whereme is anindirect object andthe ball is adirect object). Compareintransitive,transitive, andambitransitive verbs.
doublet
One of two (or more) words in a language that have the sameetymological root (as inetymon, not root morphemes like Proto-Indo-European roots) but in the modern language have differentphonological forms. Doublets can come about e.g., asloanwords from two different but related languages, as loanwords acquired from the same language at two different stages, as one loanword from a related language plus its nativecognate, or as derivatives formed at two different stages in the history of a language. Example:lever andlevator are doublets (more atCategory:English doublets). Cfpiecewise doublet.
dual,dual number
Agrammatical number that indicates exactly two items or individuals. Usually contrasts withsingular andplural.
dummy pronoun
Apronoun that has no referent. For instance,it init is good to know that you are okay is a dummysubject. It is used in order to provide the verbis with a syntactic subject, because English does not allow anull subject.
dvandva
Another term for acoordinative compound. Contrastbahuvrihi,tatpurusa andkarmadharaya.
dysphemism
A term carrying negative connotations or imagery to replace a (more) neutral original. Contrasteuphemism.

E

ed.
"Editor" (or sometimes "edition"). This abbreviation is often used in attributing quotations; the editor of a compilation is generally the individual in charge of selecting what works to include.
eggcorn
A word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression.
elative
InSemitic languages, a stage of gradation that can be used both for asuperlative andcomparative. (See alsodegrees of comparison.)
elative case
Acase which expresses "moving out of".
elision
The removal of aphoneme or sequence of phonemes from a word, particularly at the beginning or end.
ellipsis
The omission of a word or phrase that can be inferred from the context.
elongated
Withletters added foremphasis, like "stoooop!" Usually this isnonstandard writing, but in some uses, such as in interjections, this is normal: "awwwww!", "shhhh!"
emphatic
Taking particular stress. English'sreflexive pronouns double as emphatic ones, as in "I myself have not seen it" (where "myself" emphasizes the role of the speaker); some other languages (such as Greek) have emphatic pronouns that they distinguish fromweak orclitic pronouns.
enclisis
The phonetic joining of a word with the preceding word. In modern Greek this may result in an extra stress on the first word, thus:
"το όνομα μου είναι"("to ónoma mou eínai")becomes"το όνομά μου είναι"("to ónomá mou eínai")
endonym
A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language (contrastexonym). Also calledautonym orselfname.
endocentriccompound
Anominalcompound in which one part modifies the other, where the modified compound refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Examples in English are "blackboard" (a type ofboard), "houseboat" (a type ofboat), "rainbow" (a type ofbow) and "footstool" (a type of stool). Endocentric compounds are categorized into two subtypes,descriptive compounds (where the modifier also refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole, as inblackboard andhouseboat) anddeterminative compounds (where the modifier does not refer to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole, as inrainbow andfootstool). For example, ahouseboat is a type ofhouse as well as a type ofboat, and ablackboard is (usually)black. However, arainbow is not a type ofrain (rather it is abow that is causedby the rain), and similarly afootstool is not a type offoot (it is a stool intendedfor the feet). Endocentric compounds are contrasted withexocentric andcoordinative compounds.
enPR
Wiktionary'sEnglish Phonemic Representation system. Details in theEnglish pronunciation key.
epenthesis
The insertion of aphoneme, letter, orsyllable into a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic context. In careful use epenthesis only refers to insertions in the middle of a word: cf.prothesis,paragoge.
epicene
Having a single form for both male and female referents.
eponym
A word formed from a real or fictive person’s name. Comparetoponym, a word derived from a place name.
eponymous
Using its own name as a title for a work of art.
equative
A construction showing an equal quality; for example, the equative ofhappy isas happy as. In some languages, such as Welsh and Old Irish, the equative is a distinct form of the adjective.
ergative case
Acase used in some languages, which marks thesubject of atransitive verb, but not the subject of anintransitive verb.
ergative verb
A verb that can be transitive or intransitive, where the intransitivesubject is thepatient, the same role as the transitive object. Essentially, an ergative is an intransitive verb that is its owncausative when used transitively. For example,break is an ergative verb. The same thing happens to the window in "The window broke" (subject) as in "I broke the window" (direct object), but in the second example there is also anagent which causes the window to break.
etymology
An account of the origin and historical development of a word.
etymon
The source word of a given word.
euphemism
A term that is less vulgar or less offensive than the one it replaces. Contrastdysphemism.
excessive spelling
In languages withmatres lectionis (consonant letters representingvowels) a form including one or more additional ones. For example in Hebrewאדום(“red”) ofאָדֹם, an addedו(“vav”) indicating/o/.
excrescent
A sound in a word withoutetymological reason, added for articulatory purposes.
exocentriccompound
Anominalcompound in which the first part modifies the second and neither part alone conveys the intended meaning. An example in English is "houndstooth" (i.e. "resembling a hound's tooth"; neither component refers to fabric). Also known as abahuvrihicompound. Contrastendocentric (with its subtypesdeterminative anddescriptive) andcoordinative.
exonym
A name for a place, people or language used by foreigners instead of the native-language version (theendonym).
expletive
Avulgar term, anintensifier, or a word without meaning added to fill a syntactic position.
expletiveinfixation
Tmesis accompanied by insertion of an expletive or invective between the divided parts, e.g.,abso-bloody-lutely.
expressiveterm
A term with additional expressive content compared with the basic meaning of the term. This term is common in Slavic lexicography and is found in most Czech, Slovak and Polish dictionaries, but there is no exact equivalent in English lexicography. The closest equivalents might be a combination ofcolloquial and eitherendearing orpejorative, as the case may be.
eye dialect
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The deliberate use of misspellings to indicate that a character speaks in a colloquial, non-standard, or uneducated way; the spelling represents how the character would spell the words if they were asked to write them down.
ezafe orezâfe
In Persian:اِضافِه(ezâfe). Thepossessive orgenitive construction in Persian. See alsoʾiḍāfa.

F

f
Seefeminine.
factitive verb
A transitive verb that is derived from an adjective or noun, and expresses the act of making someone/something have the properties (or have more of the properties) of the base adjective or noun. Examples in English are:shorten (makeshorter),strengthen (makestronger) andenslave (make aslave). Comparecausative verbs, which are similar but are derived from other verbs.
false cognate
A word in a language that bears a phonetic and semantic resemblance to a word in another or the same language but is not etymologically related to it and thus not a truecognate. Examples includeEnglishday/Portuguesedia,GermanFeuer/Frenchfeu (both meaning "fire"),Malaydua/Sanskritद्व(dva) (both meaning "two"), andEnglishdog/Mbabaramdog. Comparefalse friend.
false friend
A word in a language that bears a phonetic resemblance to a word in another language, often because of a common etymology, but has a different meaning. Examples includeEnglishparent/Portugueseparente(“relative”) andEnglishembarrassed/Spanishembarazada(“pregnant”). Comparefalse cognate.
familiar
Describes a context where those conversing, through speech or written word, are well acquainted with one another and in casual situations often use moreinformal orcolloquial terms to communicate. Many languages haveinflections andpronouns dedicated specifically to forms that are familiar, in contrast with theirpolite counterparts.
feminine,f
"Feminine"; said of a word belonging to the femininegender, which is usually contrasted with themasculine gender, and also often with aneuter gender.
figurative
Notliteral. Offigures of speech, words or expressions used asmetaphors orsimiles, e.g. saying that a greedy person is a pig or is like a pig, or asmetonyms, e.g. usingcrown to refer to the monarchy.
first person,1st person
Agrammatical person that indicates the speaker him/her/itself, or a group to which the speaker belongs. Examples are the English pronounsI andwe.
fl.
"Floruit" (Latin for "he/she flourished"). Used when the exact dates of a person's birth and death are unknown to denote a date or period during which the person was known to have been alive or active.
focus
An adverb that indicates focus within the sentence.
folk etymology
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Re-interpretation of the form or meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. Comparereanalysis.
formal
Describes word choice andsyntax which is mainly appropriate in formal contexts, such as in official or legal documents, essays, and sometimes when talking with one's superiors or elders.Informal terms, frequently those that originate through casual speech (colloquial), are often inappropriate in formal contexts. See alsohigher register.
fossil word
A word that is broadlyobsolete but remains in currency because it is contained within anidiom that is still in use; a word that has beenfossilized.
fossilisation,fossilization
The process by which a word,morpheme orfeature of a language ceases to have independent function but is retained as a fixed component of something else within the language, becoming a "fossil". An example of a fossil element in English is the plural-en in some words such aschildren,bretheren andoxen; this suffix formerly applied to a much broader class of nouns. For instances of fossilization that appear as standalonewords, seefossil word above. Compareun-productive. Related todiachrony andsynchrony.
fpl
"Feminineplural"; of feminine gender and plural number.
frequentative
Expressingrepetition of an action.
fricative
Aconsonant sound produced by air flowing through a constriction in the mouth, and typically producing a sibilant, hissing, buzzing or otherwise "rough" quality. In English, there are fricatives that arevoiceless/f/,/s/,/ʃ/,/θ/ (as in the final sounds ofbuff,bus,bash andbath), and there are correspondingvoiced sounds/v/,/z/,/ʒ/,/ð/ (as in the final sounds ofabove,buzz,beige andbathe). Fricatives are distinguished fromplosives, in which the air is blocked completely for a short period of time, andapproximants, in which the air is not constricted enough to cause the characteristic rough sound of a fricative.
front vowel
Avowel produced in the front of the mouth. In English, the front vowels are/æ/,/ɛ/,/eɪ/,/ɪ/,/i/ (as in the vowels ofbat,bet,bait,bit, andbeat respectively). Contrasts to aback vowel.
future perfect
Atense that expresses action completed at some time in the future; in English it is formed by use ofwill have (orshall have) and apastparticiple.
future tense
Thetense of averb used to refer to an event, transaction or occurrence that has not yet happened, is expected to happen in the future, or might never happen. An English example iswillgo inI will go home tomorrow.

G

gemination
A phenomenon when aconsonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than is done normally.
gender
A way of classifyingnouns in some languages. In such languages, each noun has a specific gender (often determined by its meaning and/or form), and other words (especiallyadjectives andpronouns) will often change form to agree with the noun's gender. See alsonoun class.
gender-neutral
Of language constructs, not indicating or restricted by gender, and thus applicable to those of any gender and to those of no gender.
genericized trademark
A successful brand name or trademark that has come to refer to the generic class of objects rather than the specific brand type. The inclusion of such a term in a dictionary reflects adescriptive fact about how speakers use the language, but it does not control or inhibit a trademark owner's legal rights to defend the trademark's protected status, which is determined only through legal and judicial means. (See usage notes.)
genitive case
Acase that expresses possession or relation, equivalent to the Englishof or-'s.
gerund
Any of various non-finiteverb forms in various languages. In English, a "gerund" refers to a verb in its-ing form when used in a way that resembles the use of anoun. Despite showing noun-like behavior in the context of the surrounding sentence, gerunds show verbal behavior in the context of their own internal clause: they can take direct objects or be modified by adverbs. In this way, gerunds are distinguished from deverbal nouns ending in-ing, which occur in noun phrases that can take determiners or be modified by adjectives. For example, "manufacturing" is a gerund in the following sentence: "Efficiently manufacturing this device is difficult." It is averbal noun (not a gerund) in this sentence: "The efficient manufacturing of this device is difficult." In other languages, gerund can refer to a form that often functions as anadverb to formadverbial phrases or the continuous tense.
ghost word
Afictitious orerroneous word, originally meaningless (not used in practice), that has been published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work or otherwise listed as genuine, generally as the result of misinterpretation, misreading, or typographical error, but occasionally intentionally as afictitious entry.
government
A grammatical requirement that a word or sense imposes on its dependent words. Withcase government, the dependent word must be inflected in a particulargrammatical case. For example, the Latin prepositionex(“out of”) governs the ablative (requires that the complement is inflected in the ablative case). Also calledrection.
grammatical number
Seenumber.
grammatical person
Seeperson.
grave accent
Adiacritic mark ( ` ) used in many languages to distinguish the pronunciations ofvowels.

H

habitual
A verbalaspect specifying an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily. Also calledconsuetudinal.
hapax legomenon,hapax
Incorpus linguistics, a word that occurs only once within a givencorpus, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text.
haplology
Theelision ordeletion of a part of a word (a sequence ofphonemes, or a series of letters) that is repeated (either exactly or with slight change). An example of haplological pronunciation is the UK English pronunciation oflibrary as if spelledlibry, where the sequence ofphonemes/ɹəɹ/ is shortened to/ɹ/. An example of haplology relating to spelling issymbology, fromsymbol +‎-ology, where the sequenceolol is shortened tool. Contrast withreduplication, the repetition of a part of a word.
hedge
Inpragmatics, a term (word, phrase, or clause) used to lessen the force of an utterance: for instance, to avoid giving insult or bragging about one's knowledge.
higherregister
Belonging to the higher linguisticregister, meaning that it might be used when the speaker wishes to sound refined or educated, informal situations, or when writing. Such terms are usually less common or known and are not used in everyday speech. See alsoliterary which is a sub-category.
historical
Describing anobject orconcept which is no longer extant or current; for example,Czechoslovakia,stomacher, orphlogiston. Distinguish: ahistorical term is still in use but refers to a thing no longer in current use; anobsolete term is no longer in use, while the thing it once referred to may or may not exist. Whereas anarchaic term names a still-extant thing or non-outdated concept, a historical term names a former thing or outdated concept.
holonym
A term describing something that is formed by other smaller, somehow combined or related things. For example,tree is a holonym ofleaf;body is a holonym ofarm;Canada is a holonym ofBritish Columbia etc. The opposite of holonym, which describes things that arepart of a whole, is calledmeronym.
homograph
A word that is spelled the same as another word, usually having a differentetymology.
homophone
A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling, meaning or origin.
hortative
A verbal construction (in some languages expressed with a dedicated grammatical mood) whereby a speaker encourages an action on the part of his own group; the hortative is for the first person plural what theimperative is to the second person.
hot word
A newly coined term, or newly adopted sense of an existing term, that has become very popular in a short time. It is kept provisionally as it is likely to remain in usage, even though it would otherwise fail the "spanning at least one year" requirement of Wiktionary'scriteria for inclusion.
humorous
A word, term, or phrase that is utteredin jest (jocularly) or that originated in that way.
hyperbole
Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly if extreme.
hypercorrect
Incorrect because of the misapplication of a standard rule; for example,octopi used as the plural form ofoctopus is hypercorrect because-us →-i is the rule for forming plurals oforiginally-masculine nouns of the Latin second declension, whereasoctopus actually derives from Ancient Greek and has the plural formoctopodes consistent with its etymology.
hyperforeign
Incorrectly applying foreign reading rules, such as in pronouncing the "j" inTaj Mahal orBeijing as[ʒ] rather than[dʒ], or dropping the[t] inclaret.
hypernym orhyperonym
A term indicating acategory another term is part of, informally called “blanket” or “umbrella” term. For example,animal is a hypernym ofbird, which is in turn a hypernym ofeagle. The opposite of hypernym, which indicates terms pertaining to a category, ishyponym.
hyperthesis
A form ofmetathesis in which non-contiguous sounds are switched.
hyphenation
The splitting of a word across a line boundary, with a hyphen at the end of the first part. For example, the hyphenation ofhyphenation is given as "hy‧phen‧ation" meaning that it is split across a line break ashy-phenation or ashyphen-ation.
hyponym
A more specific term within a category described by another term, indicating a “type-of” relationship. For instance,alternative rock is a hyponym ofrock, which in turn is a hyponym ofmusic. The opposite of hyponym, which describes larger categories, ishypernym.

I

ʾiḍāfa
In Arabic:إِضَافَة(ʔiḍāfa). Thepossessive orgenitive construction in Arabic. See alsoezafe (orezâfe).
ideophone
A word that evokes an idea in sound, often a vivid impression of certain sensations or sensory perceptions, e.g. sound, movement, color, shape, or action. They may be more common in East Asian languages. In Chinese lexicography, such sense is usually described as……的樣子 or……貌, i.e. “the appearance of ...”. The attributive form isideophonic.
idiom
A phrase whose meaning is unapparent or unobvious from the individual words that make it up, such asbeat around the bush(“avoid an uncomfortable topic”),come a cropper(“suffer misfortune”), orpay through the nose(“pay an unusually large amount”). Idioms are often, but not alwaysset phrases, and are usually distinct fromproverbs.
idiomatic
Pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language. Idioms,collocations, andmodal verbs are examples of idiomatic language.
imitative
Imitating orrepresenting thesound of something. (The main class of examples is theonomatopoeic ones.)
imparisyllabic
A word with one or more inflections with more syllables than the lemma form. For example: the Greekμπακάλης(bakális,“grocer”) andμπακάληδες(bakálides,“grocers”) and the Latinmens(“mind”) andmentis(“minds”) (cf.parisyllabic).
imperfect
Theimperfective past tense of a verb, indicating that the action described happened repeatedly, habitually or continuously.
imperative mood
Themood of averb expressing an order or command. An English example is the commandgo! Commands can also be, and often are,polite, such asplease go downstairs. In many languages imperativeinflections are the same as or similar tosubjunctive ones, reflecting the shared trait of non-indicative nature: yet-unrealized ideas.
imperfective
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Anaspect of theverb which denotes an action or condition that does not have a fixed temporal boundary, but ishabitual,unfinished,continuous,repetitive orin progress. Common inSlavic languages such asRussian. Contrastperfective.
imperfective past
A verb form ofimperfectiveaspect andpasttense, which is used to describe an action or event which was happening habitually, continuously or repeatedly in the past, as in “Tom was painting the fence” or “Tom used to paint the fence.”
impersonal
A lack ofgrammatical person altogether, or an indefinite/undefined person. An example is the English pronounone. See alsoimpersonal verbs.
impersonal verb
A verb that cannot take asubject, or takes a third-person neuter subject pronoun (e.g.it) without anantecedent. The termweather verb is also sometimes used in some texts, since such verbs of weather (e.g.rain) are impersonal in many languages. Many verbs that are personal andactive in English are expressed in other languages using impersonal constructions. An example is the English sentence "I must do it", expressed inFrench using the impersonal verbfalloir(“to benecessary”), as inilfautquejelefasse(literally“It is necessary that I do it”).
inanimate
Having areferent that does not include a human or animal. Many languages (such as theSlavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using differentinflections or words with animate and inanimate nouns. For verbs, this indicates that they are usually applied only to inanimate objects or concepts, and rarely used in the first or second persons.
incomparable
(of adjectives) unable to be compared, or lacking acomparative andsuperlative function.Seecomparable. Examples of adjectives that are not comparable:annual,first,extra,satin,six-figure.
indeclinable,undeclinable,invariable orinvariant
In languages withinflection, lacking distinct inflected forms when they would be expected to exist. Indeclinable words have the same form in all cases. For example, the English nounsheep is invariable because its plural is alsosheep.Acronyms andloanwords are often indeclinable in many languages. Poorly-attested words from ancient languages are sometimes denoted "indeclinable" when they can't be assigned to a declension class with certainty.
indefinite
Refers to forms of words that present something as not yet identified or not immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of thearticlea; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectivalinflection. In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as indefinite are referred to as "strong". In Hungarian and also in Mansi, the indefinite conjugation indicatesno object orindefinite objects, includingme, us, and the informalyou.
independent clause
Aclause that can stand on its own as a completesentence, as opposed to adependent clause.
indeterminate verb
In theSlavic languages, another term forabstract verb.
indicative mood
Themood of averb used in ordinary factual or objective statements.
indirect object
A grammatical role of aditransitive verb that usually manifests as a recipient or goal. In some languages indirect objects are marked with thedative case.
→direct object
infix
Amorpheme oraffix inserted inside a word.
infinitive
A non-finite verb form consideredneutral with respect toinflection; depending on language variously found used withauxiliary verbs, insubordinate clauses, or acting as agerund, and often as thedictionary form. In English, the infinitive is formed with the wordto, e.g.toread.
inflection
The change in form of a word to represent various grammatical categories, such astense (e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense) ornumber (e.g. singular, plural). For example, the verbrun may be inflected to produceruns,ran, andrunning. In highly inflected languages, such as Latin, there will be many more forms. Two major types of inflection areconjugation (inflection ofverbs) anddeclension (inflection ofnouns,adjectives, andpronouns).
informal
Denotes spoken or written words that are used primarily in afamiliar or casual context. Do not confuse withslang ornonstandard. See alsocolloquial.
inherited
Denotes words which etymologically are notborrowings but derive through regular or sporadicsound change, without additional affixation, from a corresponding term in the language that is its direct historical ancestor. For example, Englishone isinherited from Proto-Germanic*ainaz.
initialism
Anabbreviation that is formed from the initial letters of a sequence of words. Initialisms that are pronounced as words, such asUNICEF, are usually calledacronyms, so the terminitialism is generally only used for those that are pronounced letter by letter, such asU.S.
initial vowel
Seeaugment.
inline reference
A reference whose point of application is indicated in the text.
instrumental case, ins.
Acase used to express means or agency—and is generally indicated in English by "by" or "with" with the objective.
intensifier
Aword orparticle that heightens the intensity of meaning of a term.
intensive
A word form expressing great size, power or emotion. Opposite ofdiminutive.
interjection
An expression of emotion ("ouch!", "wow!") or any of several kinds of expression that functions as a replacement of a sentence (prosentence) or that are not syntactically connected to a sentence, including curses ("damn!"), greetings ("hey", "bye"), response particles ("okay", "oh!", "m-hm", "huh?"), and hesitation markers ("uh", "er", "um"), and perhaps profanities, discourse markers and fillers.
interfix
Anempty morph (or meaningless morph) inserted between twomorphemes in the process of word formation, such as-i- and-o- in English.
internationalism
A loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or similar meaning and etymology, often due to the occurrence of several simultaneous borrowings and/or a chain of successive borrowings happening in quick succession. This commonly results in the exact etymological lineage of a term being difficult or impossible to trace for a given language. For examplebus, doctor, hotel, internet, taxi, ortelevision.International scientific vocabulary is a large subclass of internationalisms.
interrogative
A word used to ask questions.
intransitive
Of averb: not taking adirect object; nottransitive. For example, the verblisten does not usually take a direct object; it is grammatically incorrect to say "I listened the concert" (instead of the correct "I listened to the concert" with theindirect object "to the concert").
Of an adposition (such as apreposition), or of anadverb: not having anominal complement. For example, using the following prepositions or adverbs without a complement (here in parentheses):down (the stairs),under (the bridge),inside (the building),aboard (the ship),underneath (the table),here,there,abroad,downtown,afterwards, …
invariable
Seeindeclinable.
invariant
Seeindeclinable.
inversion
A grammatical construction where the normal word order is reversed. An example in English is: "Will Fred stay?"
iotation
A specific occurrence ofpalatalization that occurred in theProto-Slavic language, in which aconsonant combined with the palatal approximant/j/ to form a palatalizedconsonant. Also, any similar process occurring in a laterSlavic language or elsewhere. For example, under certain circumstances inRussian, underlyings; z; t; d; k; g are iotated toš; ž; č or šč; ž; č; ž respectively (pronounced/ʂ/;/ʐ/;/t͡ɕ/ or/ɕː/;/ʐ/;/t͡ɕ/;/ʐ/ respectively). (SeeAppendix:Russian verbs#Slavic iotation for the full iotation rules inRussian; otherSlavic languages behave similarly.)
IPA
TheInternational Phonetic Alphabet; a standardized system for transcribing the sounds in any spoken language.
ʾiʿrāb
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Also calleddesinential inflection; in Arabic:إِعْرَاب(ʔiʕrāb). A number ofinflectional endings, applied to Arabic nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which—with minor exceptions—do not appear in writing, and moreover are not pronounced inpausa, i.e. at the end of a sentence or before a pause. Nevertheless, these endings are a regular and required element of Qur'ānic and Classical Arabic. In Modern Standard Arabic, however, they are rather often avoided due to dialectal influence. In nouns and adjectives, the ʾiʿrāb primarily has the function of marking the cases (nominative,genitive,accusative), while in verbs it marks the moods (indicative,subjunctive,jussive). All of these are only occasionally distinguishable without application of the ʾiʿrāb.
irregular
Not following the usual rules ofinflection; for example, the plural of Englishman ismen, which is irregular; the regularly formed plural would have been *mans.
iterative
Expressive of an action that is repeated with frequency.

J

جمع‌الجمع(jam'o-l-jam')
In Persian, apluralized form of a (oftenfrozen)plural.
jargon
A term from either (1) atechnicalterminology specific to a particularsubject oroccupation or (2) thelanguagecharacteristic of a particulargroup of people (for example, those who share ahobby or asubculture).
jussive mood
In certain languages (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic and Esperanto), amood of averb used to indicate a command, permission or agreement with a request (distinct from theimperative).

K

karmadharaya
Another term for adescriptive compound. Contrastbahuvrihi,tatpurusa anddvandva.
Katharevousa
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Theclassically based artificial (standardized) Greek language created at the start of Greece's independence from theOttoman Empire. It was used for all formal and official purposes until 1976.
(Note: In Wiktionary, Katharevousa terms are entered under (modern)Greek.)
kenning
Ametaphorical compound or phrase describing basic objects in anallusive fashion, especially in Germanic poetry.
Kulturwort
A type ofWanderwort which is specific to a particular culture or which is spread by an influential cross-cultural phenomenon. Kulturworts (orKulturwörter) are often names of products distributed by trade and religious or ideological terms.

L

learned borrowing
Aloanword that was borrowed directly on purpose, instead of through normallanguage contact, from another language, especiallyclassical languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit, and which has not undergone significant reshaping due tosound change or analogy with inherited terms. Such borrowings are thus oftenunadapted. Compare withsemi-learned borrowings, which have been significantly reshaped (adapted), andinherited terms, which have undergone all the normal sound changes of a language. A theme of Latin's influence on modern European languages is that in many cases the same Latin word has been borrowed into any given modern language multiple times in different eras, and the morphologic and semantic facts about each descendant word differ in predictable ways (by eras); a concise summary for the case of English (for example) is offered in some introductory textbooks, such as Burriss and Casson.[1] A typical example of this process is that the Portuguese termartículo(“articulus”) is a learned borrowing fromLatinarticulus(“joint, limb, division”); the termartigo(“article”) is a semi-learned borrowing from the same term, which was borrowed early enough to undergo later sound changes thatlenitedc intog and deletedl between vowels; and the termartelho(“toe”) is inherited from the same Latin term.
lemma
The headword or citation form of aninflected word, i.e. the form under which a word is found in a dictionary. For example, in English, nouns are usually listed under their singular form (apple, rather thanapples), and verbs under their infinitive form (open, rather thanopens,opened oropening). Which form is used as the lemma varies from language to language. For verbs, for example, French, German, Spanish and many other European languages use theinfinitive, but Latin, Greek and Bulgarian use thefirst-personsingularpresentindicative, while Macedonian uses thethird-personsingularpresentindicative, and Arabic and Hebrew use themasculinethird-personsingularpastindicative. See alsoWiktionary:Lemmas.
letter case
The distinction betweenmajuscule (uppercase) andminuscule (lowercase) letters.
lexeme
The abstract "word" underlying a set of inflections; for example,gives andgiven belong to the same lexeme, which is usually identified by its lemma formgive. See also: (1)Wikipedia's article onlexemes, (2)Wiktionary:Languages with more than one grammatical gender, (3)conjugation and (4)declension.
liaison
The phonological fusion of two consecutive words and the manner in which this occurs, for example intrusion, consonant–vowel linking, etc.
ligature
A character that visually combines multiple letters, such asæ,œ,ß orij.
linking verb
Another term forcopula.
literal
Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; notfigurative ormetaphorical.
literary
Ahigherregister found mainly in literature.
litotes
(fromAncient Greekλιτότης) is a rhetorical figure involvingunderstatement that consists of saying that something hasless of one thing to meanmore of the opposite. E.g.:he is not very clever instead ofhe is a stupid idiot ;she's not very pretty instead ofshe's ugly, etc. Not to be confused witheuphemism (although litotes can be used for the purpose of euphemism) ormeiosis, which is a similar figure of speech that also uses understatement.
loanblend
Apartial calque.
loanword (alsoloan orborrowing)
A word that wasadopted (borrowed) from another language, rather than formed within the language or inherited from a more ancient form of the same language. Such a word may beadapted orunadapted. Loanwords may still be recognisably foreign (having non-native spelling or unusual pronunciation) (unadapted), or they may have become completely assimilated into the language (no longer perceived as foreign). For example, in English,schadenfreude is still recognisably German, whereascellar is fully assimilated and no longer recognisably Latin (fromcellārium). Sometimes anaturalized loanword can be both fully assimilatedand still recognised as having foreign origin (e.g.taco,burrito). Compareloan translation (calque).
locative case, loc.
"Locative". Acase used to indicate place, or the place where, or wherein. It corresponds roughly to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". Some languages use the same locative case construct to indicate when, so the English phrase "in summer" would use the locative case construct.
locative-qualitative case
Nouns in the form of the locative-qualitative case are qualifiers in the sentence and signify the locational or temporal mark of the qualified word. The qualifier is not specific but general or universalized. (See alsoAppendix:Uyghur nouns.)
logophoricity
Logophorical pronouns (logophors) are personal pronouns in some languages (such as Ainu, Ewe and Japanese) that marks the speaker when being quoted (or the entity whose thoughs or feelings are being reported). See also:Wikipedia's article onlogophoricity.
loosely
Indicates an imprecise use of words; short forloosely speaking. For most practical purposes, synonymous withbroadly. Contraststrict ornarrow sense;strictly.

M

m
Seemasculine.
m. pl.
Seempl.
macron
A short, straight, horizontaldiacritical mark ( ¯ ) placed over any of various letters, usually to indicate that the pronunciation of avowel is long.
masculine,m
Belonging to the male grammaticalgender, in languages that have gender distinctions.
mass noun
Seeuncountable.
measure word
Seecounter.
mediopassive
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The grammaticalvoice that subsumes the meanings of both themiddle voice andpassive voice. Several languages (e.g.Sanskrit,Greek,Icelandic andAlbanian) make amorphological distinction between active and mediopassive voices, and in such languages, the mediopassive can have either middle, passive or (often)reflexive semantics. Often used interchangeably with themiddle voice.
meiosis
A form ofunderstatement that consists of downplaying or diminishing the focal quality of a statement for contrastive, humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes deployed as part of ahigher register. E.g.:that was actually quite good instead ofthat was excellent ;he is somewhat displeased instead ofhe is furious, etc. Not to be confused witheuphemism (although meiosis can be used for the purpose of euphemism) orlitotes, which is a similar figure of speech that also uses understatement.
men'sspeech
In certain languages (for example,Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.
merger
  1. (etymology) Aconfluence of two etymologically separate sources into eventually one and the same term, motivated by a coincidentalphono-semantic similarity between them. For example, Old Englishnǣmel(“receptive, quick to grasp”) andnumol(“able to take, capable of holding”) apparently merged into Englishnimble, which absorbed thesemantics of both words. An extreme type ofconflation. Contrastblend.
  2. (phonology) Asound change that results in twophonemes (typically referring tovowels) becoming one phoneme as a result of increasingly similar pronunciation over time. This need not affect an entire language, but will (at least initially) apply to a particularvariety of the language, such as one regional “accent” ordialect. Example: the recentcot-caught merger affecting some English speakers.
meronym
A term that denotes a part of the whole that is denoted by another term.The word "arm" is ameronym of the word "body". The term which describes thewhole, as being an opposite of meronym, isholonym.
metaphorical
The use of a word or phrase as ametaphor to refer to something that it is not, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described. See alsosimile andfigurative.
metanalysis
Seerebracketing.
metathesis
Asound change in which two sounds or groups of sounds exchange position in a word. A form showing metathesis is described asmetathetic. The sounds may be adjacent, as inax, the metathetic form of the verbask, or farther apart, as inSpanishpalabra fromLatinparabola; there, the sound change ishyperthesis.
metonym
A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object, e.g.crown for the sovereign in a monarchy. Comparesynecdoche, which overlaps substantially indenotation.
middle voice
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Thevoice verb form in which thesubject of a verb performs some action upon itself, as in the English sentenceThe plane landed (contrastactive voiceThe pilot landed the plane andpassive voiceThe plane was landed (by the pilot)). Often used interchangeably with themediopassive voice. In some languages, such asSanskrit,Ancient Greek,Icelandic andAlbanian, the middle voice is distinguishedmorphologically from the active voice.Ancient Greek, in particular, has a three-way morphological distinction between active, middle and passive voices in theaorist andfuture tenses.
minced oath
A euphemism based on a profanity that has been altered to reduce or remove the objectionable characteristics of the original expression. Examples in English includeheck instead ofhell anddang instead ofdamn.
mixed
A type of declension in German that uses endings that are a combination ofstrong andweak endings. In adjectives, the mixed declension is used when accompanied by an indefinite article, or more generally by anein-word (a determiner that has a null ending in the nominative masculine and neuter singular, similar to the indefinite articleein). The mixed declension uses strong endings precisely in those inflections where the indefinite article has a null ending, and weak endings otherwise. By analogy, nouns declined according to the mixed declension look like strong nouns in the singular (with genitive in-s and/or-es) but weak nouns in the plural (with plural in-n and/or-en). Most mixed nouns were once weak nouns that have transitioned to strong nouns in the singular but maintain the original weak plural ending. SeeCategory:German mixed nouns for a list of German mixed nouns.
monolectic
Used of a grammatical form accomplished with one word (cf.polylectic andperiphrastic).
monosyllable
A word consisting of only onesyllable.
mood
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One of the forms of averb, used to indicate the speaker's attitude toward what they are saying (e.g. a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). Examples includeindicative,subjunctive,imperative,conditional.
morpheme
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Thesmallestlinguistic unit within aword that cancarry ameaning.
morphological
Inlinguistics, the study of words and how they are formed from component parts (morphemes). It also refers to the structure of the words themselves. Some languages lean more heavily on morphology to carry grammatical distinctions, while others rely more onsyntax. Compare EnglishI make,I will make,it is made (using syntax to encodeperson,tense andvoice distinctions) vs. Latinfaciō,facem,facitur (using morphology).
mpl,m. pl.
Masculineplural.
mutation
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The property of a sound in a word, often aconsonant but possibly avowel (as inablaut andumlaut), altering due to itsmorphological orsyntactic, as opposed tophonological, context. Examples of consonant mutations include the word-initial consonant mutations found in many Celtic languages.
mute h
In French, an initial <h> that is treated like avowel; that is to say,liaison andelision are permitted at the beginning of words that have a mute h.

N

n
Seeneuter.
n
Seenoun.
narrowly
Indicates a more precise use of words; short fornarrowly speaking. For most practical purposes, synonymous withstrictly. Contrastloose (broad) senses.
nasal infix
Theinfix*-né- or*-n- inProto-Indo-European, one of the affixes marking theimperfective aspect. It appears in several of theIndo-European languages: for instance, Latinvincit(“wins”),vīcit(“has won”); Ancient Greekλαμβάνω(lambánō,“I take”),ἔλᾰβον(élăbon,“I took”).
negative polarity item
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A term or construction that is generally found only in negative sentences, questions, conditionals, and certain other “negative polarity” contexts; for example,anyone is a negative polarity item, as one can say "I did not see anyone", "Did you see anyone?" and "If anyone wants this, speak up now", but not *"I saw anyone." Several expressions have similar properties, such asbudge an inch: "I won't budge an inch" and "Will he even budge an inch?", but not normally *"He budged an inch in the negotiations." See alsopositive polarity item.
negative verb
Anauxiliary verb used to form negatives of verbs in some languages. See alsoconnegative.
neologism
In general usage, a neologism refers to any newly coined term or meaning. For more information on the term's use in Wiktionary, seeWiktionary:Neologisms.
neuter,n
Of neutergender: having a form which is notmasculine norfeminine; or having a form which is not ofcommon gender.
nominal
Related tonouns. See alsodenominal.
As a noun, it refers to anypart of speech that is noun-like in some way, and normally includesnouns themselves along withadjectives,pronouns anddeterminers. Theinflection of nominals is commonly calleddeclension.
nominative case
Acase that is usually used as thesubject of averb. For example, if English had a fullyproductive case system, then (the)man in "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the nominative case.
nominalization orsubstantivization
The use of a word which is not anoun (e.g. averb oradjective) as a noun.
nonce word
A word invented for the occasion.
nonfinite,non-finite
Of a verb – lacking grammaticalperson andnumber attributes; most nonfinite verbs found in English areinfinitives,participles andgerunds.
non-past tense
Thetense of averb that does not pertain to thepast; in particular, applicable to both thepresent and thefuture. Common in some languages, such as Arabic. In English, the main verb in the sentencesI am running tomorrow andI am running now can be said to be in the non-past tense, since the same verb can be used to express both the present and the future.
nonstandard
Not conforming to thestandard variety orstandard language as accepted by the majority of its speakers; frequently considered incorrect. Contraststandard.
nonvirile
In Slavic languages, a pluralgender used for all groups that do not contain men, as well as plurals ofmasculine animate, masculine inanimate,feminine andneuter nouns. Contrastvirile.
not comparable
Seeincomparable.
noun
A word that refers to a person (such as anactress), a place, a physical thing (such aswood), or concept (such asbeauty,joy, ortime). See alsocountable,uncountable andplural.
noun adjunct
Seeattributive.
noun class
In some languages (especially theBantu languages), a way of classifying nouns much likegender, but determined by other considerations such as the type and shape of an object, whether it isanimate orinanimate, a person or non-person, and so on.
noun clause
A type ofdependent clause that takes the place of nouns. Examples areI saidthat my name is John as well asI suggestedthat he leave andThat the color of the sky on Mars is pinking-red is surprising to me. Noun clauses can also benonfinite (i.e. with the verb in the form of aninfinitive), as inI askedhim to leave (compare thesynonymousI askedthat he leave, expressed using afinite verb).
number, grammatical number
A grammatical category that indicates how many items or individuals. Examples aresingular,plural anddual.
numeronym
Anumber-basedword such as9/11 and24/7.

O

object
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The entity that is acted upon by averb. For example, in the sentenceTom studies grammar, the wordgrammar is the object. Contrastsubject.
→direct object,indirect object
oblique case,objective case
Any case that is neithernominative norvocative. The term is therefore often plural ("the oblique cases"); but in some languages, such asHindustani andOld French, the oblique is a particular case form, used for example (in Old French) for thedirect object and with prepositions.
obsolete,obs.
No longer in use, and (of a term) no longer likely to be understood.Obsolete is a stronger term thanarchaic, and a much stronger term thandated. SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms. Distinguish: an obsolete term is no longer in use, while the thing it once referred to may or may not exist; a historical term is still in use, but refers to a thing which no longer exists.
OED
Oxford English Dictionary. AlsoSOED (Shorter),OED1 (1st edition – also known asNED, theNew English Dictionary),OED2 (2nd edition).
offensive
Language that is intended or likely to cause offense; a kind ofimpolite language.
onomatopoeia
A word that is meant to sound like what it represents (with similarity more or lessfanciful ornotional). English examples arekaboom,cuckoo,tweet andding dong. Onomatopoeia is one way of beingimitative.
optative mood
A category of verb form (amood) that expresses wishes along with other meanings. Such a category occurs in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.
orthographicborrowing
Aloanword that has been borrowed in its written form and re-pronounced according to the conventions of the target language, particularly in East Asian languages written with Chinese characters. For example, the Chinese name毛泽东(Máo Zédōng) is rendered in Japanese as毛沢東(Mō Takutō): the spelling is the same, but the characters have been pronounced as if they were Japanese words, leading to a significantly different pronunciation. Sometimes, the pronunciations in the source and donor language have no etymological relationship. For example, the Japanese noun葉(は)書(がき)(hagaki,“postcard”) was orthographically borrowed into Korean as엽서(葉書)(yeopseo,“postcard”); another example is that the Japanese verb取(と)り消(け)す(torikesu,“cancel”) was orthographically borrowed into Chinese as取消(qǔxiāo, “cancel”), and also into Korean as취소(取消)(chwiso,“cancel”).
outdated
seedated
oxytone
With the stress upon the final syllable (e.g.εθνικός(ethnikós)). Compare withparoxytone,proparoxytone, andbarytone.

P

p.
post or after, often used in quotations. Hence, a quotation from "p. 1924" is a quotation from no earlier than 1924.
Seeplural.
palatalization
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  1. The state or quality of beingpalatalized, i.e. of pronouncing a sound with the tongue against thepalate of the mouth that normally is not so pronounced. Some languages, such asRussian andIrish, have pairs of palatalized and unpalatalizedconsonantphonemes.
  2. Asound change that involves a change of consonants to become palatalized or move in the direction of the palate; one of the most common of sound changes, and usually triggered by a following/e/,/i/ or/j/. In English, palatalization (known asyod-coalescence) converted/t//d//s//z/ to/t͡ʃ//d͡ʒ//ʃ//ʒ/ before a/j/ (which was later lost), resulting in the sounds found innature,procedure,pressure,measure, where the spelling still indicates the sound as it was prior to palatalization. Palatalization still operatessynchronically before a/j/, producing, for instance, the pronunciationsgotcha anddidja fromgotyou anddidyou.
palindrome
A word, phrase, number or any othersequence of units which has the property of reading the sameforwards as it doesbackwards, character for character, sometimes disregarding punctuation,capitalization anddiacritics.
paradigm
A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of allinflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.
paragoge
The addition of sounds at the end of a word without changing its morphological structure or meaning.
parisyllabic
A word whose inflections contain the same number of syllables as the lemma form (cf.imparisyllabic).
paroxytone
With the stress upon thepenultimate (second to last) syllable (e.g.εθνολόγος(ethnológos)). (Compare withoxytone,proparoxytone andbarytone.)
part of speech, POS, PoS
The category that a word belongs to, with respect to how it's used as part of phrases and sentences. Examples arenouns,adjectives andverbs. The part of speech is inherent in the word itself, and is independent of any specific role that the word may have within any given sentence (e.g. subject,direct object). Words may belong to more than one part of speech: Englishthis is both adeterminer and apronoun, whilecoat is both a noun and a verb.
partial calque
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A term which is only in part acalque orloan translation, such that some parts have been translated word-for-word and other parts have beenborrowed directly. For example, the English termliverwurst is a partial calque of GermanLeberwurst; the first partLeber(“liver”) was translated, but the second partWurst(“sausage”) was borrowed without translation. A partial calque is also known as aloanblend.
participle
A form of averb that may function as anadjective ornoun.English has two types of participles: thepresent participle and thepast participle. In other languages, alsofuture,perfect,future perfect participles.
particle
A word that does not fall into the usualpart of speech categories, but which modifies another word or the sentence as a whole. The English termlike is used as a particle in many dialects. Particles are more common in other Indo-European languages (e.g. Germandoch, which marks a sentence as being surprising or rebutting a previous statement) and in East Asian languages (e.g. Japaneseは, which marks the topic of a sentence). Manyclitics are particles.
partitive
Indicating partialness or indeterminateness, such as "some water" or "something nice". In Dutch, it is a word form that is used when referring to undetermined things or amounts (example:iets interessants = "something interesting"). French has special partitivearticles which qualify indefinitemass nouns (example:J'aidu café can be translated as either "I havesome coffee" or simply "I have coffee").
partitive case
Acase that expresses a partial object or an action that is not performed to completion.
passive voice
thevoice verb form in which the subject is not the person or thing doing the action, and is usually having the action done on them (cf.active voice), e.g.the ball was kicked (by the boy). (See alsovoice)
past tense
Thetense of averb used to refer to an event, transaction, or occurrence that did happen or has happened, or an object that existed, at a point in time before now. An English example issaw inI saw my friend yesterday.
past historic
Atense found primarily in writing in some languages, especially certainRomance languages. It has the same meaning as thepreterite but is used particularly innarrative.
past perfect
Same aspluperfect.
pejorative (orderogatory)
A word form expressing a negative or belittling attitude towards the person or thing referred to. Compare Englishartsy-fartsy with the neutral equivalentartistic. Some languages have specific prefixes or suffixes for expressing a pejorative attitude, e.g. Spanish-ucho/-acho or Englishschm-.
penultima
The next-to-lastsyllable of a word.
perfect
Theaspect of a verb indicating that the action described is completed. In English, it consists of the verbhave + the past participle, e.g.Tom has painted the fence orTom has taken medicine. Depending on the tense ofhave one can have present perfect, which are represented in the previous examples, or past perfect:Tom had painted the fence,Tom had taken medicine.To have painted is a perfect infinitive. See alsoImperfect. Not to be confused withperfective.
perfective
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Theaspect of a verb that denotes viewing the event the verb describes as a simple whole rather than as having internal structure. For example, "she sat down" as opposed to "she was sitting down". As this may often lead to an interpretation of completeness of what is expressed by the verb, this aspect is generally associated with the past and future tenses. Common inSlavic languages such asRussian. This term is often used interchangeably withaorist aspect. Not to be confused withperfect. Contrastimperfective.
periphrastic
Using more words to produce a grammatical effect. For example, "more fair" is aperiphrastic form of "fairer". The English future tense requiresperiphrastic usage: "Iwill write an essay." (Cf.monolectic andpolylectic.)
person, grammatical person
A grammatical category that indicates the relationship between the speaker and what is being spoken of. Examples arefirst person,second person andthird person.
personal
Having reference particular to humans and other entities having personality such as a named animal, a deity, a personification, etc. Compareanimate.
phoneme
An indivisible unit of sound in a given language, an abstraction of the physical speech sounds.
phono-semantic compound
A Chinese character (CJKV character) composed of a component which is related to the meaning of the character and another component which is related to the sound of the character, example: the character媽 /妈(mā, literally“mother”) (OC *maːʔ) is a phono-semantic compound made up of the semantic女(literally“female”) (on the left-hand side of媽／妈) and the phonetic馬 /马(mǎ) (OC *mraːʔ) (on the right-hand side of媽／妈).
phono-semantic matching
A wordborrowed into one language from another in a way that completely or partially preserves both the original sound and meaning. Phono-semantic matchings are especially common in Mandarin Chinese; examples are可口可乐 /可口可樂(Kěkǒu kělè,“Coca-Cola”, literally“tasty [and] entertaining”) and万维网 /萬維網(wàn wéi wǎng,“world wide web”, literally“myriad dimensional net”).
phrase
  1. A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in thesyntax of asentence, usually consisting of ahead, or central word, and elaborating words. Examples arethe good boy (anoun phrase),very strange (anadjective phrase), andin the house (aprepositional phrase). Normally distinguished from aclause, a similar group of words that contains averb.
  2. Same asset phrase.
piecewisedoublet
One of two (or more) derived words in a language that consist of components that all have the sameetymological roots, but which have entered the language at different points in time; in other words, one of two (or more) words that can be split into individual components and all of those components aredoublets of the equivalent components of the other words.
pl.
Seeplural.
plosive
Aconsonant sound produced by completely blocking the airflow through the mouth for a short time. In English, the plosives arevoiceless/p/,/t/,/k/ (as in the initial sounds ofpea,tea,key) and the correspondingvoiced sounds/b/,/d/,/ɡ/ (as in the initial sounds ofbuy,die,guy). Plosives are distinguished fromfricatives, in which the air is mostly but not completely blocked, enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, andapproximants, in which the airflow is only slightly constricted, resulting in a smooth sound.
pluperfect
A verb form ofperfectaspect andpasttense, which is used to describe an action or event which is regarded as having been completed in the past, in relation to a time already in the past. E.g.Tom had painted the fence before I got there.
plural, plural number, pl., p.
Agrammatical number that indicates multiple items or individuals. Most languages contrast it withsingular, and plural indicates two or more. Some languages also possess thedual or eventrial numbers; in these instances the plural indicates more than the highest specific number.
plurale tantum (plural = pluralia tantum)
Same as plural only (see below).
pluralonly
A noun (or a sense of a noun) that is inherently plural and is not used (or is not used in the same sense) in the singular, such aspants in the senses of "trousers" and "underpants", orwheels in the sense of "car", isplural only oraplurale tantum. In practice, most pluralia tantum are found in the singular in rare cases. (SeeCategory:English pluralia tantum.) Contrast words which aresingularonly (singularia tantum).
poetic
Language, commonly associated with poetry, that is typically chosen to have an artistic or cultural impact on the listener. Poetic terms and forms may be considerednonstandard orarchaic in non-poetic usage.
polite
Language that isrespectful,complaisant, and (in some cases)deferent. Many languages haveinflections andpronouns dedicated specifically to forms that are politer than theirfamiliar counterparts.
polylectic
Used of a grammatical form accomplished with more than one word (cf.monolectic andperiphrastic).
portmanteau
Ablend that combines meanings.
POS, PoS
Seepart of speech.
positive
The 'normal' form of thedegrees of comparison of an adjective or adverb. Thusbig is thepositive form of the triobig,bigger,biggest.
positive polarity item
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A term or construction that is generally found only in affirmative sentences, questions, conditionals, and certain other “positive polarity” contexts. See alsonegative polarity item.
possessional adjective
An adjective indicating that a noun is in possession of some other noun (or a quality of that noun), commonly formed in English by adding the suffix-ed,-ful,-y,-ous,-able,-ual,-ish,-ar,-esque or-like. For example, an animal isbushy-tailed if it is in possession of a bushy tail, a person filled with disdain isdisdainful, and a garden isleafy if there are many leaves on the plants there. Commonlyidiomatic, such as inpinheaded orred-faced. Not to be confused withpossessive adjectives, which indicate who possesses a noun, orrelational adjectives, which are often formed in the same way. See alsoprivative adjectives, which denote the opposite.
possessive determiner (or possessive adjective)
Adeterminer that indicates ownership. For example, in "her book", the word "her" indicates whose book it is. Not to be confused withpossessional adjectives, which indicate what a noun possesses.
postpositive
Placed after the word modified. Compareprepositive.
preconsonantal
Immediately preceding aconsonant or consonant sound.
predicate
The part of asentence that follows thesubject. This generally consists of theverb and anyobjects. It can also consist of alinking verb (e.g. "to be", "to seem", etc.) and a followingadjective, which is termed apredicate adjective orpredicative adjective (contrasted with anattributive adjective, which directly modifies anoun). An example would begood inThe food is good. Some languages, such asGerman andRussian, have a special declension for predicate adjectives.
predicative
Describes a term that acts as thepredicate or part of the predicate of asentence (e.g. apredicativeadjective, such asgood inThe food is good). Some adjectives are only-predicative likeafraid orglad in English.―InRussian, it often specifically refers to an adjective-likepart of speech that serves as the entire predicate of a sentence in animpersonal construction. Such constructions often cannot be translated word-for-word in English. An example isску́чно(skúčno,“it isboring”) in the sentenceмнеску́чно(mne skúčno,“I ambored”, literally“It is boring tome”).
prefix
Amorpheme added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning.
preposition
A word, normally non-inflecting, that is typically employed to connect a followingnoun orpronoun, in anadjectival oradverbial sense, with some other word. Examples of prepositions in English arein,from andduring. Note that some languages havepostpositions instead of prepositions; they function like prepositions but comeafter the noun or pronoun being connected.
prepositional case
Acase used in certain languages, especiallyRussian, after certainprepositions. InRussian, it corresponds to thelocative case in otherSlavic languages.
prepositive
Placed before the word modified. Comparepostpositive.
pre-prefix
Seeaugment.
prescriptive
Concerninglinguistic prescription: how some users of a language think itought to be used, as contrasted with how it isin fact used, which is sometimes different; comparedescriptive.
Prescription is not the same thing asstandardness. Example: Both of the following options arestandard, although one has a history of beingproscribed (by some speakers, because ofcontextual disapproval of degree offormality):
"Between you and I, we've got it all covered."
"Between you and me, we've got it all covered."
present tense
Thetense of averb used primarily to refer to an event, transaction, or occurrence happening now or at the present time. The verbsee inI see my friend in the window is in the present tense. In many languages, including English, the present tense may also be used to refer to past or future events in certain contexts:My plane leaves tomorrow morning (whereleave is a present verb that refers to the future), or:John Lennon dies of gunshot wounds (as in a headline, wheredies is a present verb that refers to the past; seehistorical present). While such uses are somewhat exceptional in English, the present tense is used much more widely in many languages. For example, the German present tense also covers some or most of the uses of the English future (I will do) and present perfect (I have done).
preterite (also spelledpreterit)
Atense showing an action at a determined moment in the past. In general it is thus the union of thepast tense with theperfective aspect, although in some languages it is little more than a synonym for past tense.
preterite-present verb
InGermanic languages, a verb that displays (or historically displayed)ablaut in the present tense, and thereby hadpresent tense forms resembling thepast (orpreterite) tense of astrong verb. Most languages have no more than a handful of such verbs, and they are often used asauxiliary verbs. English examples areshall,can,may. Contraststrong verb,weak verb.
prevocalic
Occurring before a following vowel.
privative adjective
  1. An adjective indicating that a noun refers to an object that is not of the class which that noun ordinarily refers to. For example, in the term "fake weapon", the word "fake" denotes that the object is not a weapon, just as the word "toy" in "toy car" denotes that it is not a car.
  2. An adjective indicating that a noun lacks some other noun (or a quality of that noun), usually formed in English by adding the suffix-less or-free to the noun that is absent. For example, someone isbeardless if they don't have a beard, while a coffee might besugar-free if it contains no sugar. Commonlyidiomatic, such as inbrainless orheartless. See alsopossessional adjectives, which denote the opposite.
productive
Used to form new words and phrases. For example, when a new verb appears in Modern English, the productive suffix-ed is used to form its past participle; by contrast, the suffix-en appears in many existing past participles, but is not productive, in that it is not (usually) used to form new ones.
progressive
Theaspect of a verb, indicating that the action described is, was or will be continuing, uncompleted or repeated. A verb form indicating that an action isin progress. In English, formed from a combination ofbe + the present participle (-ing form) of the verb. So one can have present progressive (e.g.is painting), past progressive (e.g.was painting), future progressive (e.g.will be painting), etc. Similar to, but less general than, theimperfectiveaspect. (See alsocontinuous.)
pronominal verb
A form ofverb that has an attachedpronoun; this is a prominent feature ofRomance and Slavic languages. The verb–pronoun combination can havereflexive,reciprocal,passive,subjective oridiomatic semantics.
pronoun
Apart of speech that acts as a substitute for anoun ornoun phrase and refers to a topic of the discussion. Pronouns can refer to a participant in the discussion and can be used instead of a person's name, such as with the pronounsI andyou. Other pronouns, such ashe,she, andit, can be used to refer to other people or objects that have already been mentioned without repeating their names.
pronunciation spelling
A respelling that more closely reflects the pronunciation of a word.
proparoxytone
With the stress upon theantepenultimate (third to last) syllable (e.g.εθνικότητα(ethnikótita)). (Compare withoxytone,paroxytone, andbarytone.)
proper noun
A kind ofnoun that usually refers to a specific, unique thing, such asEarth andthe Alps, though one language's proper noun may translate to another language using acommon (not proper) noun. In English, proper nouns are usually capitalized, as are common nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns. The same word may have both common-noun and proper-noun senses (such asGerman, which is both a proper noun denoting a certain language, and a common noun denoting a person from Germany), and most proper nouns can sometimes be used as common nouns – e.g.John is a proper noun that is a first name, but can be used a common noun with pluralJohns meaning "people named John".
proscribed
Some authorities or commentators recommend against or warn against the listed usage.
Proscribing (forbidding) is understandable both (1) as the negativetype ofprescribing when the latter means "dictatingdos and don'ts" and (2) as theopposite ofprescribing when the latter means "preferring".
prothesis
The prepending ofphonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as innother, fromother (“a whole nother thing”, viatmesis), or Spanishesfera from Latinsphaera(“sphere”).
protologism
Aneologism or any coined word with very limited use. By definition, protologisms do not meet Wiktionary'scriteria for inclusion, but some are recorded atAppendix:Protologisms.
proverb
Aphrase expressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations.
pseudo-acronym
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A word that has the form of anacronym orinitialism but no longer stands for anything.
pseudo-anglicism
A word in a non-English language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning, such asFlipper(“pinball machine”),サラリーマン(sararīman,“white-collar worker”, literally“salary-man”) andafterwork(“informal gathering after work”).
pseudo-loan
A word in one language that appears to be a direct borrowing from another language, but does not exist in that language or has an unrelated meaning. Examples are Frenchfooting(“jogging”), GermanBodybag(“messenger bag, courier bag”), Japaneseサラリーマン(sararīman,“white-collar worker, 'salaryman'”) and Swedishafterwork(“informal gathering after work”). Depending on the source language, more specific terms may be in use, e.g.pseudo-anglicism for pseudo-loans from English;wasei-eigo specifically for Japanese-language pseudo-loans from English;pseudo-Latinism for pseudo-loans from Latin (cf.hocus pocus,noli illegitimi carborundum);pseudo-Hispanism for pseudo-loans from Spanish (cf.no problemo,que sera sera);pseudo-Gallicism for pseudo-loans from French (cf.vive la différence,nom de plume,triple entendre);pseudo-Germanism (from German),pseudo-Japonism (from Japanese),pseudo-Arabism (from Arabic),pseudo-Italianism (from Italian), etc.

Q

quantifier
A word that specifies the amount of its related noun, such asall,no,many,several,eight,half, etc.

R

rare
A term or sense that is attested but not used commonly either in spoken or written language, even less so thanuncommon terms. A rare term or sense is typically difficult to find even when deliberately searching for it, and may be attested only a handful of times in accessiblecorpora.
reanalysis
Analysis of alexeme with a different structure from its original, often by misunderstanding. For example,hamburger, which is originallyHamburg +-er, was reanalyzed asham +-burger, which produced words likecheeseburger.
rebracketing
The process by which a word originally derived from one source is broken down or bracketed into a different set of factors. The understanding ofhamburger asham +burger (rather thanHamburg +-er) is an example of rebracketing. Also calledmetanalysis.
reciprocal
Used to indicate that subjects have other subjects as object. Pronouns can be reciprocal (in Englisheach other), as well as verbsreciprocal quality aslexemes.
reconstruction
A word that is not recorded in actual texts or other media, but has been recreated from its descendant forms, using thecomparative method of linguistics.
reducible
In theSlavic languages, a word (especially a noun or adjective) with an alternation between a vowel and no vowel in different forms of the word, pursuant toHavlík’s law. In Russian, for example, the reducible masculine nounвене́ц(venéc,“crown”) appears unreduced (with /e/ in the final syllable) in the masculine singular, and reduced (with no /e/) in other forms, e.g. genitive singularвенца́(vencá), nominative pluralвенцы́(vencý).
reduplication
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The repetition of a word or a part of a word (as few as twophonemes in a word, or the whole sequence of phonemes in the word) with no or slight change. Comparehaplology, theelision of a repeated part of a word.
reflex
The name given to a descendant word in adaughter language, descended from an earlier language. For example, Modern Englishheat is the reflex of the Old Englishhǣtu.
Rarely, this word is used in reverse, and the 'reflex' is actually the root word rather than the descendant word. However, this usage is usually filled by the termetymon instead.
reflexive
Referring back to the subject, or having an object equal to the subject. Pronouns can be reflexive (e.g.myself,oneself).Romance and Slavic languages make extensive use of reflexive verb forms (e.g.Italianlavarsi,Spanishlavarse(“to wash oneself”)). These are part of a larger group ofpronominal verbs.
register
A variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. Encompasses variants such asslang,colloquial,informal,formal, etc.
related terms
Words in the same language that have strong etymological connections but arenot derived terms.
relational
Refers to a type of adjective in some languages, e.g.Latin,Ancient Greek and theSlavic languages, that takes the place of a noun when it modifies another noun. Consider an English phrase such aschicken soup. In English, this phrase can be constructed by simply placing a noun such aschicken in the position normally occupied by an adjective, i.e. directly before the noun. In languages such asRussian, however, this cannot be done, and instead the wordку́рица(kúrica,“chicken”) must be replaced by the relational adjectiveкури́ный(kurínyj,“related to chickens”) when forming the Russian equivalentкури́ныйсуп(kurínyj sup,“chicken soup”). Generally, adjectives of this sort cannot be qualified bymore,less orvery. This concept relates to the concept of thenoun adjunct.
relative
  1. Marking arelative clause. Often used of pronouns, such asthe treewhich....
  2. In theBantu languages, apart of speech that resembles anadjective in function, but behaves morphologically and syntactically like arelative clause.
relative clause
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Asubordinate clause that modifies anoun. InThe man who I saw yesterday is leaving today, the clausewho I saw yesterday is a relative clause. In English, relative clauses are often introduced by arelativepronoun such aswho,which orthat, but other languages often have different strategies for marking relative clauses.
respelling
A different spelling of a word, especially to show its pronunciation.
retronym
A new word or phrase coined for an old object or concept whose original name has become used for something else or is no longer unique (such as acoustic guitar where guitar used to mean this but can now also refer to an electric guitar).
rhetoric
  1. The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.
  2. A string of words that are designed to impress or confuse, rather than communicate. (See alsoAppendix:Glossary of rhetoric.)
rhetorical question
A question to which the speaker does not expect an answer
rhotacism,rhotacization
  1. Asound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to arhotic consonant in a certain environment, most commonly /z/ to /r/.
  2. The opposite process: changing /r/ to /z/, or to a different consonant, orelision.
Romanization,Romanisation
Transliteration of a string in a non-Latin script into the Latin or Roman one: for instance,συγγνώμη can be romanized assingnómi.
root
The part of a word that forms its core and gives its most basic meaning; also the part of the word that is left when allaffixes are removed. For example, ininsubordination, the root isord, while inunspeakableness it isspeak. The root is often the first part of the word (as inUralic and often inIndo-European languages), but it may also be the last part, or it may only consist of the consonants of the word (as in theAfroasiatic languages).
rustic
Describes a word as part of 'rural' speech. Different toarchaic orcolloquial.

S

s
Seesingular.
screeve
InGeorgian grammar, a particular combination oftense,aspect andmood.
script
A writing system adapted to a particular language or set of languages.
second person,2nd person
Agrammatical person that indicates the person or group to whom one is speaking. Examples are the English pronounsyou andthou.
second-person-object form
A type of conjugation inHungarian (aside fromdefinite andindefinite) which indicates a first-person singular subject and a second-person (whether singular or plural, but informally addressed) object, for exampleszeretlek(“I loveyou”) orlátlak(“I seeyou”).
semantic loan
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A word or expression created byborrowing a meaning from another language and assigning it to a word or expression which is already considered to have an idiomatic meaning in the borrowing language. Also called semantic calque. For example, the French wordsouris(literally“mouse”) was given the additional meaningcomputermouse in imitation of Englishmouse, which already had both meanings. Semantic loans are distinguished fromcalques in that calques are not considered to have a pre-existing idiomatic meaning at the time that they are coined.
semantic shift
A usually significant change in the meaning of a word over time, either within the same language or when the word is derived from another language. For example, Latinēgregius(literally“standing out from the flock”), meaning “distinguished, outstanding, excellent” is the source of Englishegregious, which shifted semantically into meaning “outstandingly bad, shocking”.
semanticnarrowing
A type of semantic shift in which the meaning changes from general to specific (narrower).
semanticbroadening
A type of semantic shift in which the meaning changes from specific to general (broader).
semelfactive
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A verbalaspect, a subclass ofperfective, which denotes amomentary orpunctual event (e.g. tosneeze, toblink, toknock). InSlavic languages such asRussian, often used to express actions performed once.
semi-learned borrowing
Aloanword that was borrowed from aclassical language such as Latin or Sanskrit (especially when borrowed into a descendant of the same language), which has been partly reshaped by latersound change or analogy with inherited terms (adapted). Contrast withlearned borrowings, which have usually not been similarly reshaped (unadapted), andinherited terms, which have undergone all the normal sound changes of a language. For example, the Portuguese termartigo(“article”) is a semi-learned borrowing fromLatinarticulus(“joint, limb, division”), which was borrowed early enough to undergo later sound changes thatlenitedc intog and deletedl between vowels, but did not undergo earlier sound changes, such as lowering shorti toe. In comparison,artelho(“toe”) is inherited from the same Latin term, andartículo(“articulus”) is a learned borrowing from the same Latin term.
semivowel
A sound which has some qualities of aconsonant and some qualities of avowel.
sentence
A syntactic unit that expresses a complete thought and consists of one or moreclauses joined together.
sentence adverb
An adverb that modifies an entire clause or sentence rather than a single word or phrase.
set phrase
Set phrase, a commonexpression (aphrase) whosewording is not subject tovariation, or alternately, whose words cannot be replaced bysynonymous words withoutcompromising the meaning. Set phrases may includeidioms,proverbs, andcolloquialisms. For example,flight simulator is a set phrase because it has a special meaning thatflying simulator doesn't.
sg.
Seesingular.
SGV
Seesingulative.
shortening
A shortened form of a word(s), includingabbreviations,acronyms,contractions,initialisms,short forms.
short form
A shortened term which is itself a stand-alone term; e.g.Acts, a short form used to refer toActs of the Apostles.
sic
A Latin adverb meaning "thus, so". It is traditionally placed inside square brackets and used in quotations to indicate that the preceding is not a copying error, but is in fact a verbatim reflection of the source. (For example, if a source contains a typographical error, someone quoting the source might add [sic] to make clear that the error was in the original source.)
siglum (pl. sigla)
A letter or other symbol that stands for a word or name; e.g.ꝓ is a medieval Latin siglum for the wordpro.
simile
Afigure of speech in which one thing is compared to another; in English, it generally useslike oras; seemetaphor andfigurative.
simplex
A simple word, one withoutaffixes.
singular, singular number, sg., s
Agrammatical number that indicates exactly one item or individual. Usually contrasts withplural, and, in some languages, withdual.
singulare tantum (plural = singularia tantum)
Same as singular only (see below).
singularonly
A noun (in any specific sense) that has no plural form and is only used with singular verbs. Frequently for mass nouns. Contrast words which arepluralonly (pluralia tantum).
singulative, singulative number, SGV
The marked singular form of an unmarkedmass noun.
Sino-Xenic
Refers to pronunciations inJapanese,Korean andVietnamese languages (grouped with Chinese asCJKV) of terms or components derived from medievalChinese.
s.l.
Latinsinelocō(literally“without a place”), used to indicate that the place of publication is not stated in a work.
slang
Denotes language that is unique to a particular profession or subject, i.e.jargon. Also refers to the specialized language of a social group, sometimes used to make what is said unintelligible to those who are not members of the group, i.e.cant. Such language is usually outside of conventional usage, and is mostly inappropriate informal contexts.
Slavic first palatalization
A specific occurrence ofpalatalization that occurred in theProto-Slavic language, in which thevelar consonants*k *g *x when followed by any of thefront vowels*e *ě *ь *i became the sounds*č *ž *š, respectively. The Slavic first palatalization is still an active process in many modernSlavic languages. For example, before certain suffixes inRussian, the consonantsк г х ц becomeч ж ш ч respectively. OtherSlavic languages behave similarly.
Slavic progressive palatalization
A specific occurrence ofpalatalization that occurred in theProto-Slavic language, in which thevelar consonants*k *g *x when preceded by either of thefront vowels*ь *i (possibly with an interveningn) became the sounds*c dz s/š, respectively, withs occurring in East and South Slavic butš occurring in West Slavic.
s.n.
Latinsinenōmine(literally“without a name”), used to indicate that the name of the publisher is not stated in a work.
snowclone
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A type ofcliché which uses an oldidiom formulaically in a new context. (See alsoAppendix:English snowclones)
solemn
Used to evoke a sense of current events being highly important. Examples of situations where solemn language is likely to be used are liturgical events, various ceremonies, and public speeches. Solemn terms are often dated or archaic, and once belonged in the neutral register.
sound change
A change in the pronunciation of a sound in a given language, usually according to regular rules. An example of such a change in English is the deletion ofh in the/hw/ cluster found in words such aswhich andwhale, making themhomophonous withwitch andwail, respectively. (This sound change is found in most varieties of English, but not in Scottish English or in some conservative American English and Irish English varieties. SeePronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.)
sound symbolism
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The idea thatphonemes or clusters of phonemes carry intrinsic meaning in a language. For example, the phoneme clustergl- appears to mean "light" in English in words such asgleam,glisten,glare,glossy andglow. (See alsophonestheme on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
spelling pronunciation
A pronunciation affected by the written form of the word, diverging from the original inherited form. Some spelling pronunciation are considered mistakes or non-standard, while others have historically become universally accepted and completely replaced the original pronunciations.
standard
Conforming to thestandard variety orstandard language. Contrastnonstandard. Standardness in linguistics isdescriptive, but part of the phenomenon that description describes is the fact that someprescriptive notions can influence standardness via afeedback loop.[2] Usages can beinformal but standard, even when they are notformal and even when they areproscribed by some speakers.
Astandard variety is often aprestige variety. This can cause some confusion aboutnonstandardness equallinginherent "inferiority", "incorrectness", or "wrongness" when all it really equals iscontextual inappropriateness. Within a single language, awordform orusage can be anidiomatic norm within somevarieties even when it is not the norm in thestandard variety. (For example, in English this is true of thezero copula in a sentence such asHe gone already.) It can also be the idiomatic norm ininformal register within the standard variety even when it is often avoidedformally therein. (In English this is true, for example, of mostcontraction use.) These facts explain the important difference betweencode-switching and speaking "incorrectly" (as if withinherently "wrong" forms or usage).
stative
Of a verb: expressing astate rather than anaction oractivity. Many Bantu languages have a verbal extension/suffix to derive stative verbs from other verbs, often withinchoative orpotential meaning.
stem
The part of aninflected word that the ending is attached to. For example, Latinmens- (stem, "table") +-ae (ending, 1st-declension nominative plural) →mensae (full word, "tables", nominative plural).
stratum
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A language that influences another bycontact, typically due to close geographic proximity (often both spoken simultaneously in the same land) and some form of cultural contact. A stratum can be further classified assubstrate,superstrate, or adstrate.
strictly
Indicates a more precise use of words; short forstrictly speaking (sensu stricto). Contrastloose orbroad (wide) sense;loosely.
strong declension
In German, a declension of adjectives, and of masculine and neuter nouns, that is defined in opposition to theweak declension andmixed declension. Strong nouns (typically) form their genitive in-s and/or-es and do not form their plural by adding-n and/or-en. In adjectives, the strong declension is a set of endings used when the adjective is not accompanied by a definite or indefinite article, and includes a fuller set of endings than that of the weak or mixed declensions (hence the name). Note that "strong", "weak" and "mixed" refer to inherent declensional properties of nouns, but all adjectives can be declined according to all three declensions, depending on whether an article precedes and what type of article it is. By analogy, the term "strong declension" is sometimes used in other inflected Germanic languages such asIcelandic andOld English. In these languages, adjectives are formed similarly to German but there is typically not a single strong noun declension. Rather, a strong noun is any noun that does not follow the weak declension.
strong pronoun
(Greek) Anemphatic pronoun.
strong verb and strong conjugation
InGermanic languages, a verb that displaysablaut. More specifically, a verb that has a change invowel between present and past. An English example isdrink,drank,drunk. Note that some verbs show a vowel change, but not as a result of ablaut (e.g.think,thought); these are not considered strong verbs. Contrastweak verb,preterite-present verb.
subject
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In aclause: the word or word group (usually a noun phrase) that is dealt with. Inactive clauses withverbs denoting an action, the subject and the actor are usually the same. Contrastobject.
subjunctive mood
Themood of averb expressing an action or state which ishypothetical oranticipated rather than actual, includingwishes andcounterfactuals. Some English examples areif Iwere rich andit’s important that hebe here. In many languagesimperative (command)inflections are the same as or similar to subjunctive ones, reflecting the shared trait of non-indicative nature: yet-unrealized ideas.
subordinate clause
Same asdependent clause.
substantive
  1. A noun or adjective (or phrase), that names a real object withsubstance. This is in contrast to anattributive noun or adjective, which names a real object that carries theattributes of the named noun or adjective.
  2. InMongolic languages, it sometimes refers to a singlepart of speech that collectively encompasses nouns, adjectives and adverbs, due to their shared morphological behaviour.
substantivization
Seenominalization.
substratum
A languagestratum which has lower cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. Many historicalsubstrate languages have gone extinct without ever having been attested, and so they must be inferred from their influences on surviving or attested languages. One such example is thePre-Greek substratum.
suffix
Amorpheme added to the end of a word to modify its meaning.
superlative
Aninflection, or different form, of acomparable adjective showing a relative quality, denoting "to the ultimate extent". (See alsocomparative anddegrees of comparison.) In English, the superlative form is often formed by appending-est, or using the wordmost. For example, the superlative ofbig is "biggest"; ofconfident, "most confident".
superseded
Especially of a spelling, formerly standard, and still frequently encountered, but now deprecated in favor of another form as the result of a spelling reform. Examples in Portuguese:idéia instead ofideia,freqüente instead offrequente,microondas instead ofmicro-ondas, all replaced in the1990 Orthographic Agreement, which was fully implemented only by 2015.
superstratum
A languagestratum which has higher cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. One historical example is thesuperstrate effect ofOld Norman French on lateOld English in the centuries following the 11th-centuryNorman conquest of England.
supine
A term for aninfinite verb form in some languages. In Latin, a type ofverbal noun, used for theablative andaccusative case of aninfinitive. In Swedish, a form related to thepast participle, used to formperfect tenses. In Slovene and Lower Sorbian, a form related to the infinitive, used to indicate purpose after a verb of movement.
suppletion,suppletive
The situation in which the inflected forms of a word come from two or more unrelated roots: for example,go andwent;be,is, andwas. One or more of these forms, or the entireparadigm of the word, may then be called suppletive. Examples from various languages may be found fromCategory:Suppletive verbs by language.
surface analysis,surface etymology
Theapparent etymology of a term by ananalysis based on components occurring in the form of the language at a later point in time, i.e. that term'ssynchronic makeup: for example, the analysisearth +-en forearthen, which actually was inherited via Middle English from Old English, in which it occurred aseorthen.
syllable
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A unit of human speech that is interpreted by the listener as a single sound.
synchrony
The viewpoint of analysis of a language which considers only its state at one point (or period) in time, not accounting for historical language change or etymology (as opposed todiachrony). A purelysynchronic analysis of a word or phrase (as e.g. from the intuition of a speaker of the language) which may differ from its true etymological derivation is termed asurface analysis.
syncope
The deletion or elision of sounds inside a word (not at the beginning or end), most often a singlevowel, but sometimes aconsonant or a sequence of vowels or consonants. Deletion at the beginning of a word is calledapheresis, at the endapocope.
syncretism
The situation in which two or moreinflected forms of a word are identical. For example, Englishwalked is both the simple past and the past participle ofwalk, and Ancient Greekἄλλο(állo) is the neuter nominative, accusative, and vocative singular ofἄλλος(állos).
synecdoche
Afigure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part. Comparemetonym, which overlaps substantially indenotation.
synonym
A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, another word or phrase. Contrastantonym.

T

تَصْحِيف(taṣḥīf)
When a copyist has set wrong points (ʾiʿjām) upon the skeleton (rasm) of the (Arabic) script.
tatpurusa
Another term for adeterminative compound. Contrastbahuvrihi,karmadharaya anddvandva.
tautology
Redundant use of words, apleonasm, an unnecessary and tedious repetition.
technical
(1) Specifically related to a particulardiscipline, either (a) exclusively so or (often) (b) with a somewhatstricter sense when used in that way; (2) Of or related totechnology.
telic
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Theaspect of a verb that denotes an action with a definite endpoint or a goal that is tended towards, or rather an action that isquantized (such that the expression for that action may not describe both the action and a smaller part of that same action); contrastatelic. A kind of telicity distinction can be seen in English when specifying a duration in a (simple past) verb phrase: telic verb phrases takein (I built a housein an hour.Did you just lose two keysin one day?)
tense
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One of the forms of averb, used to distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists. The basic tenses in many languages arepresent,past,future.
thematicization
Insertion of athematic vowel on theroot orstem of the word to make itundergo one of theproductivevocalic inflections.
third person,3rd person
Agrammatical person that indicates someone or something that is neither the person or group to which the speaker belongs, nor the person or group that the speaker is speaking to. Examples are the English pronounshe,she,it,this,that, and so on. Allnouns are generally considered third person. In some languages (like German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hungarian), the third-person conjugation is also used to express the formalyou (sometimes combined with the plural and/or capitalizing the personal pronoun in writing).
tmesis
The insertion of one or more words between the components of acompound word. It may produceprothesis; for example, insertingwhole intoanother yieldsa whole nother (tmesis), in whichnother isprothetic.
tone
The pitch of a given syllable in languages where changing the pitch changes the basic meaning of the word. InMandarin Chinese, for example, the word pronounced /ma/ (like Englishma), when pronounced with a high, level tone means "mother", but when pronounced with a rising tone means "bother", and when pronounced with a falling tone means "scold".
topic state
In Luganda, the form of anoun in which there is aninitial vowel. Contrastbase state.
toponym
A placename, or a word derived from one.
topicalized form
In some languages, such as Okinawan, a topicalized form of a word is a contraction of that word, used as the phrasetopic, with the topic marker.
tr., tran., transl.
Translator or translated, often used in quotations.
transferred sense, transf.
A (usuallylooser) meaning of a word orphrase developed from ametaphorical application of its original signification (for example,hunger has the primary and original sense “want of food”, “craving appetite”, whence developed the transferred sense of “any strong desire or craving”).
transgressive
A verb form in some Balto-Slavic languages that expresses a coincidentally proceeding or following action.
transitive verb
A verb which requires one or moreobjects (e.g.Ikick the ball); contrastintransitive verb.
translation hub
An English multi-word entry that is unidiomatic (sum of parts) and exists purely to host translations and enable navigation from one non-English entry to another non-English entry. An example:two days after tomorrow. SeeCategory:Translation hubs for more.
transliteration
The conversion of text in onescript into an equivalent in anotherscript, or an instance of text so converted (for example,Ševčenko andShevchenko are transliterations of UkrainianШевченко from Cyrillic script to Latin script, according to two different systems). Transliteration is conducted on a letter-by-letter basis (contrasted withtranscription which is converted on the basis of sounds). This may be extended to the conversion ofdiacritical marks into alternate forms without diacritical marks in the same script (e.g.Mörder →Moerder).
transnumeral
Agrammatical number that is ambiguous as to whether it refers to thesingular orplural. Found inSino-Tibetan languages such asChinese andJapanese, as well as someAustronesian languages such asIndonesian andMalay. When a language also has a plural (or some other) number, they are commonly only used for clarity or emphasis.
troponym
A verb that indicates more precisely the manner of doing something by replacing a verb of a more generalized meaning, e.g. “to boil” for “to cook”.

U

UK
UK English, that is, the English of theUnited Kingdom.
umlaut
Asound change where avowel is modified to conform more closely to the vowel in the nextsyllable. Compareablaut.
unadaptedborrowing
Aloanword that has not been conformed to the morpho-syntactic, phonological and/or phonotactical rules of the target language. For example,Englishcubiculum is an unadapted borrowing fromLatincubiculum, whileEnglishcubicle is a standard borrowing from the same Latin word. Unadapted borrowings are often learned ones; seelearned borrowing. Contrastadapted borrowings.
uncommon
A term or sense that is attested but not used commonly either in spoken or written language, but more commonly thanrare terms. In comparison to a rare term, an uncommon term may be easy to find in a deliberate search, but is very unlikely to be encountered naturally. Uncommonslang orjargon is unlikely to be used even by members of the relevant subcommunity or specialists in the relevant field.
uncomparable
Seeincomparable.
uncountable, uncountable noun,mass noun
A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or theindefinite article, and which therefore usually takes noplural form. For example, the English nouninformation is a mass noun, and at least in its principal senses is uncountable in most varieties of English. For those senses, we cannot say that we have *one information, nor that we have *many information (or *many informations). Many mass noun senses often have corresponding pluralcount senses that denotetypes of the mass sense,instances of the mass sense, orportions (servings) of the mass sense. For example, the main sense ofbutter is the uncountable sense, so the plural formbutters is seldom used, although it occasionally is used to mean "types of butter" (manyherb butters contain garlic) or "[packets of] butter". Compare also other implicit references to a container and the portion/serving that it contains (get me a water, order two sodas, have a few beers). Many languages do not distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns.Antonym:countable, orcount noun.
undeclinable
Seeindeclinable.
univerbation
A single word formed from a fixed expression of several words. For example, the single wordalbeit comes from the Middle English expressional be it, in whichal meansalthough.
usage notes
Additional information on current and historicusage of the term in written or spoken language.

V

v
Seeverb.
varia lectio,variant reading,variant
Any one of the readings of a given word or passage in a text which differ from copy to copy, from edition to edition, from manuscript to manuscript, or from translation to translation.
variety
A form of a language that may be specific to a region, subpopulation, or other delimitation; in Wiktionary's use of this term, synonymous withdialect andlect.
velar
Aconsonant made with the tongue touching thesoft palate (also known as thevelum). In English these include/k/,/ɡ/,/ŋ/, as in the final consonants ofsack,sag, andsang, respectively.
verb
A word that indicates an action, occurrence or state of being. Theinflection of verbs is commonly calledconjugation.
verbal noun
Anoun formed from averb.
verlan
A type ofbackslang used in French, in which the order of thesyllables or sounds of words is changed, usually with the lastsyllable coming first. Examples arebarjot fromjobard(“crazy”) andmeuf fromfemme(“woman”). Sometimes this transformation is applied recursively, e.g.beur, a verlan form ofrebeu, which is itself a clipped verlan form ofarabe.
virile
In Slavic languages, a pluralgender used for groups that include men and formasculine personal nouns.
vocative case
Acase which indicates that someone or something is being directly addressed (spoken to), often by name. For example, in the English phraseHe's dead, Jim the nameJim would be a vocative.
voice
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A verb characteristic (expressed in some languages by inflection) indicating its relationship with the subject. The usual voices are:active,passive andmiddle.
voiced
A sound produced with vibration of thevocal cords; a type ofvoicing.
voiceless
A sound produced without vibration of thevocal cords; a type ofvoicing.
voicing
A characteristic of sounds, indicating whether they are produced with vibration of thevocal cords. In English, allvowels are voiced, as well as allapproximant consonants, butplosive andfricative consonants can be either voiced or voiceless. Examples of voiced sounds in English are/v/,/z/,/b/,/d/, and the corresponding voiceless sounds are/f/,/s/,/p/,/t/. Whispering is a type of speech production in which all sounds are pronounced voiceless.
vowel
A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of asyllable.
vowel harmony
Aphonological restriction in some languages which constrains thevowels found either next to each other or within a word, such that vowels must belong to the same class in a particular classification, like front/back vowels or rounded/unrounded vowels.
vulgar
Language considered distasteful, obscene, profane, or otherwise unsuitable for use in polite or formal speech.
Sometimes, adialectal orvernacular language, one that is spoken in a region as afirst language. But also, instead, a language used commonly or popularly as asecond language (SeeVulgate). Specifically in the context of Latin, the European languages that developed in the late middle ages and early modern period, on the expense of Latin.
See also:offensive,pejorative,profanity.

W

Wanderwort orwanderword
A wordform which has spread over a substantial area, or to many regions, outside of that of its language of origin, typically due to cultural exchange resulting from travel and trade. Wanderworts are a type ofloanword, but a Wanderwort may or may not be anareal word. See alsoKulturwort. Contraststrata.
weak declension
A declension of adjectives and nouns in severalGermanic languages, which originally had (and in some languages still have) an-n- in most of their forms. The weak adjective declension is used in conjunction withdefinitearticles. The weak noun declension is simply one of several possible noun declensions, so named because it uses the same endings as weak adjectives. See the Wikipedia article on theweak inflection for more information.
weak pronoun
A pronoun of one syllable which is dependent on another word and cannot be used on its own; sometimes calledclitic. Compare withemphatic orstrong.
weak verb
InGermanic languages, a verb that forms the past tense using a suffix containing adental consonant (d,t,ð or similar). Verbs of this type are considered "regular" in most Germanic languages, but there are also irregular weak verbs, such as Englishthink,thought andhave,had. Contraststrong verb,preterite-present verb.
women'sspeech
In certain languages (for example,Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.

X

Y

Z

zero-grade
InProto-Indo-Europeanlinguistics, anablaut form of a root characterized by the absence of the basic ablautingvowelphonemes */e/ and */o/. For example,*bʰr̥- is thezero-grade of the Indo-European root*bʰer- meaning ‘to carry, bear’.

References

  1. ^Burriss, Eli E., Casson, Lionel (1965) Lionel Casson, editor,Latin and Greek in Current Use‎[1], 2nd edition, Prentice-Hall, pages7-12
  2. ^Curzan, Anne (2014)Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History, Cambridge University Press,→ISBN, pages 47 and passim
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