Appendix:Glossary

A glossary of terms used in the body of this dictionary. See also Wiktionary:Glossary, which contains terms used elsewhere in the Wiktionary community and Appendix:Glossary of rhetoric, which explains commonly used rhetorical terms.

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Table of Contents: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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A

a.

"Ante" (Latin for "before"). Hence, a quotation from "a. 1924" is a quotation from no later than 1923.

abbreviation

A shortened form of a word, such as an initialism, acronym, or many terms ending in a period.

ablative case

A case that indicates separation, or moving away from something. It is used alone or with certain prepositions. For example, if English had a fully productive case system that included the ablative case, then in the phrase came 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

In Proto-Indo-European, or any of its descendants (the Indo-European languages), a system of vowel 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 of inflection and word derivation. In the Germanic languages, it forms the basis of the strong verbs. A specific form of ablaut is referred to as a grade; see for instance zero-grade. (More at Indo-European ablaut)

absolutive case

A case used to indicate the patient or experiencer of a verb's action.

abstract noun

A noun that denotes an idea, emotion, feeling, quality or other abstract or intangible concept, as opposed to a concrete item, or a physical object. Antonym of concrete noun.

abstract verb

In the Slavic 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 an indeterminate verb. The opposite type of verb, which expresses a single, completed action, is termed a concrete verb (or a determinate verb). Motion verbs in the Slavic languages come in abstract/concrete lexical pairs, e.g. Russian ходи́ть (xodítʹ, “to go (abstract)”) vs. идти́ (idtí, “to go (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 always imperfective in aspect, even with prefixes that are normally associated with the perfective aspect (e.g. Polish przybiegać).

accusative case, acc.

A case that is usually used as the direct object of a verb. For example, if English had a fully productive case system, then ball in "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the accusative.

acronym

An abbreviation that is pronounced as the “word” it would spell, such as NATO.

active voice

The voice verb form in which the grammatical subject is the person or thing doing the action, e.g., The boy kicked the ball. Cf. passive voice. (See also Voice (grammar))

acute accent

A diacritic 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 to CE.

adjective

A word like big or childish that usually serves to modify a noun.

adverb

A word like very, wickedly or often that usually serves to modify an adjective, verb, or other adverb.

adverbial

Relating to an adverb. For example, an adverbial participle is a participle that functions like an adverb in a sentence.

adverbial clause

A type of dependent clause that modifies a verb in an adverbial fashion. Examples are When my friend arrives, I will take him out to dinner and If it rains, I will go home (the latter example being specifically a conditional clause).

agent noun

A noun that denotes an agent who does the action denoted by the verb from which the noun is derived, such as "cutter" derived from "to cut".

AHD

The American Heritage Dictionary. For historical reasons, this abbreviation is sometimes used here to identify a respelled pronunciation that is given in enPR form.

ambitransitive verb

Capable of being either transitive or intransitive depending on usage. For instance, eat and read optionally take a direct object: "I eat daily", "She likes to read" (both intransitive), "Read this book", "I do not eat meat" (both transitive). Note: Although ergative verbs are ambitransitive, a single definition could only refer to an unergative verb.

anglicisation, anglicization

The modification of a foreign (borrowed) word to make it more English in form.

animate

Having a referent that includes a human or animal. Many languages (such as the Slavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using different inflections or words with animate and inanimate nouns. (See Animacy)

antepenultima

The third-to-last syllable of a word, before the penultima.

antonym

A word with a meaning that is the opposite of a meaning of another word. For example, good is an antonym of bad. Contrast synonym.

aorist

A grammatical category of verbs that is often a perfective past. (See aorist)

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 which escarp became scarp. Words derived in this way are called aphetic.

apocopic

A word form in which the word is lacking the final sound or syllable. Occurs in Italian, Spanish, and other languages.

approximant

A consonant 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 of loo, rue, woo and you). Approximants are distinguished from fricatives, in which the air is constricted enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, and plosives, 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 or Bible translations. For example, thee and thou are archaic pronouns, having been completely superseded by you. Archaic is a stronger term than dated, but not as strong as obsolete. (See Wiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.)

areal

Distributed across multiple languages inhabiting a particular area, due to language contact among them rather than due to inheritance from a common ancestor. The term can be applied either to words (see loanword) or features of languages such as in grammar, morphology, and phonology. See also Wanderwort and stratum.

article

A type of determiner 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 the definite article the, and the indefinite articles a and an. Some languages may have more articles, such as the French partitive articles du, de la and des, while many languages lack articles altogether.

aspect

A property of a verb form indicating the nature of an action as perfective (complete) or imperfective (incomplete or continuing).

aspirated h

In French, an initial ⟨h⟩ that is treated as a consonant; that is to say, liaison and elision 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 also dissimilation.

attributive

1. An adjective that stands in a syntactic position where it directly modifies a noun, as opposed to a predicative adjective, which stands in a predicate position but which modifies the subject of the clause. For example, in the big green house, big and green are attributive adjectives, whereas in The house is big and green, big and green are predicative adjectives.
2. A noun or adjective (or phrase) that names a real object with the attributes of another real object. This is in contrast to a substantive noun or adjective, which names a real object that is the actual substance named by the noun or adjective.

augment

In some Indo-European languages, a prefixed vowel (usually e-; έ or ή in Greek, a- in Sanskrit) indicating a past tense in a verb.

augmentative

A word form expressing large size, importance, intensity, or seniority.

auxiliary verb or auxiliary

A verb that accompanies another verb in a clause. It is used to indicate distinctions in tense, mood, voice, aspect or other grammatical nuances. English examples are can, will, have, be.

avoidance term

A word standardly used to replace a taboo word. (See Naming taboo)

B

back-formation

A term formed by removing an apparent or real prefix or suffix from an older term; for example, the noun pea arose because the final /z/ sound in pease sounded like a plural suffix. Similarly, the verb edit is a back-formation from the earlier noun editor. Not to be confused with clipping, which just shortens a word without changing meaning or part of speech.

backronym

A word that is either not an acronym but is taken to be one and for which a full form is invented by back-formation, or is an acronym and for which an alternative full form is invented by back-formation.

backslang

A form of slang in which the spelling of words is reversed.

bahuvrihi

Nominal compound in which the first part modifies the second and neither part alone conveys the intended meaning.

barytone

With the stress elsewhere than upon the final syllable. Compare with oxytone, paroxytone, and proparoxytone.

BC

Before Christ. Year-numbering system equivalent to BCE.

BCE

Before the Common Era. Year-numbering system equivalent to BC. AD is expressed as CE. To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC"/"AD" style, visit WT:Per-browser preferences.

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 as smog (from smoke and fog) or Wiktionary (from wiki and dictionary). Many blends are portmanteaus.

borrowing, borrowed

See loanword.

bowdlerization

The removal, from a text, of words or phrases that are considered offensive or vulgar.

C

c., ca.

"Circa" ("about"). Hence, a quotation from "c. 1924" or "ca. 1924" is a quotation from approximately 1924.

calque

A borrowing by word-for-word translation: a loan translation. For example, the English expression it goes without saying is a calque (a literal, word-for-word translation) of ça va sans dire, and Wiktionary:flea market is a calque of marché aux puces (literally “market with fleas”). Contrariwise, the term skyscraper was calqued into French as gratte-ciel (literally “scrapes-sky”). (see Calque)

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 for category.

Without the period, the ISO 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); see Wiktionary:Categorization.

catenative verb

A verb able to be immediately followed by the full or bare infinitive, or gerund (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 to lie), set (cause to sit) and raise (cause to rise). Compare factitive verbs (e.g. shorten, enslave), which are similar but are derived from adjectives or nouns.

CE

Common Era. Year-numbering system equivalent to AD. To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC"/"AD" style, visit WT:Per-browser preferences.

cf.

"Confer"; "see"; "compare"  – often used to indicate a word with similar, or opposite meaning.

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

See counter.

clause

A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence, where the head (or central) word is a verb; normally distinguished from a phrase, which is a similar unit where the head word is some other part of speech, such as a noun, adjective or preposition. For example, the sentence The man entered the house, which was large and blue contains two clauses, the independent clause The man entered the house and the dependent clause which was large and blue (in this case specifically a relative clause, although not all dependent clauses are relative clauses).

clipping

A shortening of a word, without changing meaning or part of speech. Not to be confused with back-formation, which changes meaning, or ellipsis, which shortens by omission of whole words. See also apheresis, apocope.

→ Clipping (morphology)

clitic

A word that attaches to a phrase and cannot be used on its own, such as English -'s. Many languages have clitic pronouns (weak pronouns), which may be contrasted with emphatic or strong pronouns; for example, English Wiktionary:'em is a clitic version of them, and always attaches to the preceding word (usually the verb).

cognate

Descended from the same source lexeme of an ancestor language.

coinage

A new word intentionally created with a definite meaning.

collective

Expressing a collection or aggregate of individuals, by a singular form.

→ :Category:Collective nouns by language

colloquial

Used primarily in casual conversation or informal writing and not in more formal written works, speeches, and discourse. Compare the similar tag informal. Do not confuse with slang or nonstandard.

Note: It is a common misconception that colloquial somehow denotes "local" or a word being "regional". This is not the case; the word root for colloquial is related to locution, not location.

common gender, c

"Of common gender". Some languages have a distinct common gender that combines masculine and feminine but is distinguished from neuter. In other languages, a "noun of common gender" is epicene; that is, it 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.

comparable

Of an adjective or adverb: able to be compared, having comparative and superlative forms that end in -er and -est (adjectives only), or in conjunction with the words more or most, or in some cases further or furthest. Examples: big, bigger, and biggest; talented, more talented, and most talented; upstairs, further upstairs, and furthest upstairs. Some adjectives are truly uncomparable, such as daily, additional, and else. Many other adjectives, such as unique, existential, and bearable are generally considered uncomparable, but controversially so, where examples can be readily cited of something being "more bearable" or "most perfect".

comparative

An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, usually denoting "to a greater extent" but not "to the ultimate extent" (see also superlative and degrees of comparison). In English, the comparative form is usually formed by appending -er, or using the word more. For example, the comparative of hard is "harder"; of difficult, "more difficult".

compound

A word or name that combines two or more words without altering them, such as dishcloth (from dish and Wiktionary:cloth) or keyboard (from key and board). Compound terms are indicated in etymologies using {{compound}}; see also WT:ETY#Compound.

concrete noun

A noun that denotes something tangible or material, such as a person or place. Antonym of abstract noun.

concrete verb

In the Slavic languages, a verb of motion whose motion is unidirectional and expresses a single, completed action. Opposed to abstract verbs, whose motion is multidirectional or indirect, or whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative). Also called a determinate verb. See abstract verb for more discussion.

conditional mood

The mood of a verb used to signify that something is contingent upon the outcome of something else. The conditional mood in English is normally introduced by the word would, as in If I were rich, I would be happy.

conjugation

The inflection of verbs. See also declension.

consonant

Any sound that is not the dominant sound of a syllable, the dominant sound generally being a vowel.

construct state

In some languages, a grammatical form that is used in construing a noun or adjective with another noun or adjective. In the Semitic languages, the construct form is usually a noun modified by a following noun in a genitive construction. The construct state of such a noun X can usually be translated to English as X of. In Persian, the construct state is typically used for all nouns and adjectives in a noun 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.

contraction

A shortened word or phrase, sometimes with the missing letter(s) represented by an apostrophe (e.g. do not → don't).

contranym

A term with two opposite meanings.

coordinate term

A term that is a different type of the same hypernym (loosely “category”). Car and bicycle are coordinate terms to each other, both being hyponyms of a shared hypernym vehicle. Although the term can be applied broadly, e.g., car and asteroid are both things, such usage is not useful in Wiktionary.

copula

A verb that links and equates its subject with its object; also called a linking verb. The most common copula is the verb to be, but others exist, such as to seem, to appear and to sound. The object of a copula often has special properties. For example, it can be an adjective (John is very tall) when most verbs require their objects to be nouns or pronouns. In addition, in languages with case distinctions, the object of a copula is most commonly in the nominative case, while the object of other verbs is usually in a different case, such as the accusative case. Many languages (e.g. Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic) use a null copula (i.e. no word at all) in the present tense when English would use the words am, are or is.

corruption

A debased or nonstandard form of a word, expression, or text, resulting from misunderstanding, transcription error, mishearing, etc.

countable, countable noun, count noun

Describes a noun which can be freely used with the indefinite article (a or an in English) and with numbers, and which therefore has a plural form. Antonym: uncountable, or mass noun.

counter

In linguistics, counters, measure words or classifiers 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 with mass nouns, and in some cases also with count nouns.

D

dated

Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable; for example, wireless in the sense of "broadcast radio tuner", Wiktionary:groovy, and gay in the sense of "bright" or "happy" are all dated. Dated is not as strong as archaic or obsolete. See Wiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.

dative case, dat.

A case that is usually used as the indirect object of a verb. For example, if English had a fully productive case system, then him in "She gave him the ball" would most likely be in the dative.

declension

The inflection of nouns and words like them, or used together with them (i.e. nominals). See also conjugation.

defective

Normally would be expected to have a full set of inflected forms, but some of the inflections do not exist or are never used. English examples are the defective verbs can and shall, which do not have infinitive forms (there is no to can or to shall).

defective spelling

In languages with matres lectionis (consonant letters representing vowels), the form including no additional ones, this may still include a mater lectionis.

definite

Refers to forms of words that present something as known, identified, or immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of the article Wiktionary:the; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectival inflection. In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as definite are referred to as "weak".

degrees of comparison

Inflections of adjectives and adverbs which allow comparisons. English has three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. Some other languages have other degrees, e.g.: comparative superlative, relative superlative, elative.

denominal

Derived from a noun.

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

A clause that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence, as opposed to an independent clause. Also known as a subordinate 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 man who 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), and noun clauses, which take the place of nouns (e.g. I said that my name is John or I suggested that he leave). (see Dependent clause)

deponent

(In Greek, Latin and some Gaelic 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.

determinate verb

In the Slavic languages, another term for concrete verb.

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, but some is a determiner, so *“the some car” is not grammatical while “He saw some car” is. In English, adjectives can sometimes stand alone without a noun, while determiners nearly always can (contrast *“He saw big” with “He saw some”), such that they are sometimes considered pronouns as well as adjectives.

deverbal

A word, often a substantive, derived from a verb. Contrast denominal.

diachrony

A viewpoint of analysis of a language or phrase within a language which considers the historical changes over time which have shaped its state at a given later time. The term is typically used to contrast with synchrony.

diacritic

A diacritic – also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or an accent – is a glyph 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 words "naïve" and "Noël", which show that the vowel with the diaeresis mark is pronounced separately from the preceding vowel; the acute and grave accents, which can indicate that a final vowel is to be pronounced, as in "saké" and poetic "breathèd"; and the cedilla under the "c" in the borrowed French word "façade", which shows it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/.

dialectal

1. Of or relating to a dialect.
2. Not linguistically standard.

diminutive

A word form expressing smallness, youth, endearment, unimportance, or contempt.

direct object

The noun or noun phrase that a verb is directly acting upon. In some languages direct objects are marked with the accusative case.

→ transitive verb, indirect object

dissimilation

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 coronnel from Old Italian colonnello. It has an opposite effect to assimilation.

ditransitive verb

(of a verb) taking two objects, such as give in “Give me the ball” (where me is an indirect object and the ball is a direct object). Compare intransitive verb and transitive verb.

doublet

One of two (or more) words in a language that have the same etymological root, but have come to the modern language through different routes. Doublets can come about e.g. as loanwords 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 native cognate, or as derivatives formed at two different stages in the history of a language.

dual, dual number

A grammatical number that indicates exactly two items or individuals. Usually contrasts with singular and plural.

dummy pronoun

A pronoun that has no referent. For instance, it in it is good to know that you are okay is a dummy subject. It is used in order to provide the verb is with a syntactic subject, because English does not allow a null subject.

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.

elative

In Semitic languages, a stage of gradation that can be used both for a superlative and comparative (see also degrees of comparison).

elative case

A case which expresses "moving out of".

elision

The removal of a phoneme 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

With letters added for emphasis, like "stoooop!" Usually this is nonstandard writing, but in some cases like interjections, this is normal: "awwwww!", "shhhh!"

emphatic

Taking particular stress. English's reflexive 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 from weak or clitic 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")

enPR

Wiktionary's English Phonemic Representation system. Details in the English pronunciation key.

epicene

Having a single form for both male and female referents.

eponym

A word formed from a real or fictive person’s name. Compare toponym, a word derived from a place name.

eponymous

Using its own name as a title for a work of art.

ergative verb

A verb that can be transitive or intransitive, where the intransitive subject is the patient, the same role as the transitive object. Essentially, an ergative is an intransitive verb that is its own causative 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 case, there is also an agent which causes the window to break.

equative

A construction showing an equal quality; for example, the equative of happy is as happy as. In some languages, such as Welsh and Old Irish, the equative is a distinct form of the adjective.

ergative case

A case used in some languages, which marks the subject of a transitive verb, but not the subject of an intransitive verb.

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.

eye dialect

A nonstandard spelling which, although it indicates a standard pronunciation, is deliberately substituted for the standard spelling, often to indicate that a speaker's regular use of language is nonstandard or dialectal. Eye dialect is to be distinguished from from pronunciation respelling, and separate templates exist ({{eye dialect of}}, {{pronunciation spelling of}}.)

excessive spelling

In languages with matres lectionis (consonant letters representing vowels) a form including one or more additional ones. For example in Hebrew אדום‎ (“red”) of אָדֹם‎, an added ו (“vav”) indicating /o/.

excrescent

A sound in a word without etymological reason, added for articulatory purposes.

F

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 (make shorter), strengthen (make stronger) and enslave (make a slave). Compare causative verbs, which are similar but are derived from other verbs.

false friend

A word in a language that bears a resemblance to a word in another language but in fact has a different meaning.

familiar

Describes a context where those conversing, through speech or written word, are well acquainted with one another and in casual situations often use more informal or colloquial terms to communicate.

feminine, f

"Feminine"; said of a word belonging to the feminine gender, which is usually contrasted with the masculine gender, and also often with a neuter gender.

figurative

Not literal. Of figures of speech, words or expressions used as metaphors or similes, e.g. saying that a greedy person is a pig or is like a pig, or as metonyms, e.g. using 'crown' to refer to the monarchy.

first person, 1st person

A grammatical person that indicates the speaker him/her/itself, or a group to which the speaker belongs. Examples are the English pronouns I and we.

focus

An adverb that indicates focus within the sentence.

folk etymology

A misunderstanding of the etymology of a word; a false etymology that incorrectly explains the origin of a word.

formal

Describes a context where word choice and syntax are primarily limited to those terms and constructions that are accepted by academia or official institutions as most appropriate and correct. Informal terms, frequently those that originate through casual speech (colloquial), are often inappropriate in formal contexts. Examples with varying degrees of formality include: official or legal documents, formal essays, job interviews, etc.

fossil word

A word that is broadly obsolete but remains in currency because it is contained within an idiom that is still in use.

fpl

"Feminine plural"; of feminine gender and plural number.

frequentative

Expressing repetition of an action.

fricative

A consonant sound produced by air flowing through a constriction in the mouth, and typically producing a sibilant, hissing, buzzing or otherwise "rough" quality. In English, the fricatives are voiceless /f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /θ/ (as in the final sounds of buff, bus, bash and bath) and the corresponding voiced sounds /v/, /z/, /ʒ/, /ð/ (as in the final sounds of above, buzz, beige and bathe). Fricatives are distinguished from plosives, in which the air is blocked completely for a short period of time, and approximants, in which the air is not constricted enough to cause the characteristic rough sound of a fricative.

front vowel

A vowel produced in the front of the mouth. In English, the front vowels are /æ/, /ɛ/, /eɪ/, /ɪ/, /i/ (as in the vowels of bat, bet, bait, bit, and beat respectively).

future perfect

A tense that expresses action completed at some time in the future; in English it is formed by use of will have (or shall have) and a past participle.

future tense

The tense of a verb 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 is will go in I will go home tomorrow.

G

gemination

A phenomenon when a consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than is done normally.

gender

A way of classifying nouns in some languages. In such languages, each noun has a specific gender (often determined by its meaning and/or form), and other words (especially adjectives and pronouns) will often change form to agree with the noun's gender. See also noun class.

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.

genitive case

A case that expresses possession or relation, equivalent to the English of.

gerund

Any of various non-finite verb forms in various languages. In English, a "gerund" is a verb in its -ing form when used in a way that resembles the use of a noun.

grave accent

A diacritic mark ( ` ) used in many languages to distinguish the pronunciations of vowels.

H

habitual

A verbal aspect specifying an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily. Also called consuetudinal.

hapax legomenon

In corpus linguistics, a word that occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text.

haplology

The elision or deletion of a part of a word (a sequence of phonemes, or a series of letters) that is repeated (either exactly or with slight change). An example of haplological pronunciation is the UK English pronunciation of library as if spelled libry, where the sequence of phonemes /ɹəɹ/ is shortened to /ɹ/. An example of haplology relating to spelling is symbology, from symbol +‎ -ology, where the sequence olol is shortened to ol. Contrast with reduplication, the repetition of a part of a word.

hedge

In pragmatics, 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.

historical

Describing an object or concept which is no longer extant or current; for example, Czechoslovakia, stomacher, or phlogiston. Distinguish: a historical term is still in use but refers to a thing which no longer exists; an obsolete term is no longer in use, while the thing it once referred to may or may not exist.

holonym

A term describing something that is formed by other smaller, somehow combined or related things. For example, Wiktionary:tree is a holonym of leaf; body is a holonym of arm; Canada is a holonym of British Columbia etc. The opposite of holonym, which describes things that are part of a whole, is called meronym.

homograph

A word that is spelled the same as another word, usually having a different etymology.

homophone

A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling, meaning or origin.

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 fails the "spanning at least one year" requirement of the Criteria For Inclusion on Wiktionary.

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 of octopus is hypercorrect because -us → -i is the rule for forming plurals of originally-masculine nouns of the Latin second declension, whereas octopus actually derives from Ancient Greek and has the plural form octopodes consistent with its etymology.

hyperforeign

Incorrectly applying foreign reading rules, such as in pronouncing the "j" in Taj Mahal or Beijing as [ʒ] rather than [dʒ], or dropping the [t] in claret.

hypernym or hyperonym

A term indicating a category another term is part of, informally called “blanket” or “umbrella” term. For example, animal is a hypernym of Wiktionary:bird, which is in turn a hypernym of eagle. The opposite of hypernym, which indicates terms pertaining to a category, is hyponym.

hyphenation

The splitting of a word across a line boundary, with a hyphen at the end of the first part. For example, the hyphenation of hyphenation is given as "hy‧phen‧ation" meaning that it is split across a line break as hy-phenation or as hyphen-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 of Wiktionary:rock, which in turn is a hyponym of music. The opposite of hyponym, which describes larger categories, is hypernym.

I

ideophonic

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 Oriental languages. In Chinese lexicography, such sense is usually described as or , i.e. “the appearance of ...”.

idiom

A phrase whose meaning is unapparent or unobvious from the individual words that make it up, such as beat around the bush (“avoid uncomfortable topic”), come a cropper (“suffer misfortune”), or pay through the nose (“pay an unusually large amount”). Idioms are often, but not always set phrases, and are usually distinct from proverbs. See also Appendix:Glossary of idioms.

idiomatic

Pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language. Idioms, collocations, and modal verbs are examples of idiomatic language.

imitative

Imitating or representing the sound of something.

imperfect

The imperfective past tense of a verb, indicating that the action described happened repeatedly, habitually or continuously.

imperative mood

The mood of a verb expressing an order or command. An English example is the command go!

imperfective

An aspect of the verb which denotes an action or condition that does not have a fixed temporal boundary, but is habitual, unfinished, continuous, repetitive or in progress. Common in Slavic languages such as Russian. Contrast perfective. (see Imperfective aspect)

imperfective past

A verb form of imperfective aspect and past tense, 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 of grammatical person altogether, or an indefinite/undefined person. An example is the English pronoun one. See also impersonal verbs.

impersonal verb

A verb that cannot take a subject, or takes a third-person neuter subject pronoun (e.g. it) without an antecedent. The term weather 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 and active in English are expressed in other languages using impersonal constructions. An example is the English sentence "I must do it", expressed in French using the impersonal verb falloir (“to be necessary”), as in il faut que je le fasse (literally “It is necessary that I do it”).

inanimate

Having a referent that does not include a human or animal. Many languages (such as the Slavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using different inflections 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.

indeclinable, undeclinable, invariable or invariant

In languages with inflection, lacking distinct inflected forms when they would be expected to exist. Indeclinable words have the same form in all cases. For example, the English noun sheep is invariable because its plural is also sheep. Acronyms and loanwords are often indeclinable in many languages.

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 the article a; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectival inflection. In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as indefinite are referred to as "strong".

independent clause

A clause that can stand on its own as a complete sentence, as opposed to a dependent clause.

indeterminate verb

In the Slavic languages, another term for abstract verb.

indicative mood

The mood of a verb used in ordinary factual or objective statements.

indirect object

A grammatical role of a ditransitive verb that usually manifests as a recipient or goal. In some languages indirect objects are marked with the dative case.

→ direct object

infix

A morpheme or affix inserted inside a word.

infinitive

A non-finite verb form considered neutral with respect to inflection; depending on language variously found used with auxiliary verbs, in subordinate clauses, or acting as a gerund, and often as the dictionary form. In English, the infinitive is formed with the word to, e.g. to read.

inflection

The change in form of a word to represent various grammatical categories, such as tense (e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense) or number (e.g. singular, plural). For example, the verb run may be inflected to produce runs, ran, and running. In highly inflected languages, such as Latin, there will be many more forms. Two major types of inflection are conjugation (inflection of verbs) and declension (inflection of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns).

informal

Denotes spoken or written words that are used primarily in a familiar, or casual, context, where a clear, formal equivalent often exists that is employed in its place in formal contexts. Compare similar tag colloquial.

inherited

Denotes words which etymologically are not borrowings but derive through regular sound change, without additional affixation, from a corresponding term in the language that is its direct historical ancestor. For example, English fairy is inherited from Middle English fairye.

initialism

An abbreviation that is formed from the initial letters of a sequence of words. Initialisms that are pronounced as words, such as UNICEF, are usually called acronyms, so the term initialism is generally only used for those that are pronounced letter by letter, such as U.S.

instrumental case, ins.

A case used to express means or agency—and is generally indicated in English by "by" or "with" with the objective.

intensifier

A word or particle that heightens the intensity of meaning of a term.

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.

intransitive verb

Of a verb: not taking a direct object; not transitive. For example, the verb listen does not usually take a direct object; it is grammatically incorrect to say "I listened the ball".

Of an adposition (such as a preposition), or of an adverb: not having a nominal 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

see: indeclinable

invariant

see: indeclinable

iotation

A specific occurrence of palatalization that occurred in the Proto-Slavic language, in which a consonant combined with the palatal approximant /j/ to form a palatalized consonant. Also, any similar process occurring in a later Slavic language or elsewhere. For example, under certain circumstances in Russian, underlying s; z; t; d; k; g are iotated to š; ž; č or šč; ž; č; ž respectively (pronounced /ʂ/; /ʐ/; /t͡ɕ/ or /ɕː/; /ʐ/; /t͡ɕ/; /ʐ/ respectively). See Appendix:Russian verbs#Slavic iotation for the full iotation rules in Russian. Other Slavic languages behave similarly.

IPA

The International Phonetic Alphabet; a standardized system for transcribing the sounds in any spoken language.

ʾiʿrāb

Also called desinential inflection; in Arabic: [script needed] (ʾiʿrāb, ʾiʿrābun). A number of inflectional endings, applied to Arabic nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which—with minor exceptions—do not appear in writing, and moreover are not pronounced in pausa, 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. See ʾIʿrab on Wikipedia.

irregular

Not following the usual rules of inflection; for example, the plural of English man is men, which is irregular; the regularly formed plural would have been *mans.

iterative

Expressive of an action that is repeated with frequency.

J

jussive mood

In certain languages (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic and Esperanto), a mood of a verb used to indicate a command, permission or agreement with a request (distinct from the imperative).

K

Katharevousa

The classically based artificial (standardized) Greek language created at the start of Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was used for all formal and official purposes until 1976. (Note: In Wiktionary, Katharevousa terms are entered under (modern) Greek.) (See Katharevousa)

Kulturwort

A type of Wanderwort which is specific to a particular culture or which is spread by an influential cross-cultural phenomenon. Kulturworts (or Kulturwörter) are often names of products distributed by trade and religious or ideological terms.

L

lemma

The headword or citation form of an inflected word, especially the form found in a bilingual dictionary. For verbs this is usually the infinitive or the present tense first person singular, for nouns it is usually the nominative singular. (In linguistics, the word is sometimes used in a sense that includes this definition plus all the inflections; compare lexeme). The plural of lemma is traditionally lemmata, but the form lemmas exists as well. See also Wiktionary:Lemmas.

letter case

The distinction between majuscule (uppercase) and minuscule (lowercase) letters.

lexeme

The abstract "word" underlying a set of inflections; for example, gives and given belong to the same lexeme, which is usually identified by its lemma form give. See also: (1) Wikipedia's article on lexemes, (2) Wiktionary:Languages with more than one grammatical gender, (3) conjugation and (4) declension.

linking verb

Another term for copula.

literally

Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; not figurative or metaphorical.

literary

An elevated register found mainly in literature.

litotes

(from Ancient Greek λιτότης) better known as an Wiktionary:understatement in English, is a rhetorical figure that consists of saying less to mean more. E.g.: he is not very clever instead of he is a stupid idiot ; she's not very pretty instead of she's ugly, etc. Not to be confused with euphemism, although litotes can be used for the purpose of euphemism.

loanword (also loan or borrowing)

A word that was adopted (borrowed) from another language, rather than formed within the language or inherited from a more ancient form of the same language. Loanwords may still be recognisably foreign (having non-native spelling or unusual pronunciation), or have become completely assimilated into the language (no longer perceived as foreign). For example, in English, schadenfreude is still recognisably German, while cellar is fully assimilated and no longer recognisably Latin (from cellārium). Compare loan translation (calque).

locative case, loc.

"Locative". A case 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 Appendix:Uyghur nouns.

loosely

Indicates an imprecise use of words; short for loosely speaking. Contrast strict or narrow sense; strictly.

M

macron

A short, straight, horizontal diacritical mark ( ¯ ) placed over any of various letters, usually to indicate that the pronunciation of a vowel is long.

masculine, m

Belonging to the male grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions.

mass noun

see uncountable noun, below.

measure word

See counter.

mediopassive

In Ancient Greek, a category of inflected form in certain tenses that contrasts with the active voice, and may have meanings characteristic of the middle voice and passive voice. In other tenses, there is a three-way contrast between active-, middle-, and passive-voice forms. See also middle voice.

men's speech

In certain languages (for example, Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.

meronym

A term that denotes a part of the whole that is denoted by another term. The word "arm" is a meronym of the word "body". The term which describes the whole, as being an opposite of meronym, is holonym.

metaphorical

The use of a word or phrase as a metaphor to refer to something that it is not, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described. See also simile and figurative.

metanalysis

See rebracketing.

metathesis

A sound change in which two sounds or groups of sounds exchange position in a word. A form showing metathesis is described as metathetic. The sounds may be adjacent, as in ax, the metathetic form of the verb ask, or farther apart, as in Spanish palabra from Latin parabola, in which case the sound change is hyperthesis.

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.

middle voice

The voice verb form in which the subject of a verb performs some action upon itself, it falls somewhere between the active and passive voices. Found in a few languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Icelandic). (see Voice (grammar))

minced oath

A euphemism based on a profanity that has been altered to reduce or remove the objectionable characteristics of the original expression.

mixed

A kind of definiteness found in German and related languages, that is intermediate between definite (weak) and indefinite (strong).

monolectic

Used of a grammatical form accomplished with one word (Wiktionary:cf polylectic and periphrastic).

mood

One of the forms of a verb, used to indicate the speaker's attitude toward what they are saying (e.g. a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). Examples include indicative, subjunctive, imperative, conditional. (see Grammatical mood)

mpl, m. pl.

Masculine plural.

mute h

In French, an initial < h> that is treated like a vowel; that is to say, liaison and elision are permitted at the beginning of words that have a mute h.

N

nasal infix

The infix -né- or -n- in Proto-Indo-European, one of the affixes marking the imperfective aspect. It appears in several of the Indo-European languages: for instance, Latin vincit (“wins”), vīcit (“has won”); Ancient Greek , .

negative polarity item

A term or construction that is generally found only in questions, negative sentences, and certain other “negative polarity” contexts; for example, anyone is a negative polarity item, as one can say "I did not see anyone" and "Did you see anyone?", but not *"I saw anyone."

neologism

A newly coined term or meaning. See Wiktionary:Neologisms.

neuter, n

Of neuter gender: having a form which is not masculine nor feminine; or having a form which is not of common gender.

nominal

Related to nouns. See also denominal.

As a noun, it refers to any part of speech that is noun-like in some way, and normally includes nouns themselves along with adjectives, pronouns and determiners. The inflection of nominals is commonly called declension.

nominative case

A case that is usually used as the subject of a verb. For example, if English had a fully productive case system, then (the) man in "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the nominative case.

nominalization or substantivization

The use of a word which is not a noun (e.g. a verb or adjective) as a noun.

nonce word

A word invented for the occasion.

nonfinite, non-finite

Of a verb – lacking grammatical person and number attributes; most nonfinite verbs found in English are infinitives, participles and gerunds.

non-past tense

The tense of a verb that does not pertain to the past; in particular, applicable to both the present and the future. Common in some languages, such as Arabic. In English, the main verb in the sentences I am running tomorrow and I 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 the language as accepted by the majority of its speakers.

nonvirile

In Slavic languages, a plural gender used for all groups that do not contain men, as well as plurals of masculine animate, masculine inanimate, feminine and neuter nouns. Contrast virile.

noun

An object such as a ball, a chair or an animal, or a concept such as happiness, joy or loveliness. See also countable, uncountable and plural.

noun class

In some languages (especially the Bantu languages), a way of classifying nouns much like gender, but determined by other considerations such as the type and shape of an object, whether it is animate or inanimate, a person or non-person, and so on.

noun clause

A type of dependent clause that takes the place of nouns. Examples are I said that my name is John as well as I suggested that he leave and That the color of the sky on Mars is pinking-red is surprising to me. Noun clauses can also be nonfinite (i.e. with the verb in the form of an infinitive), as in I asked him to leave (compare the synonymous I asked that he leave, expressed using a finite verb).

number, grammatical number

A grammatical category that indicates how many items or individuals. Examples are singular, plural and dual.

O

object

The entity that is acted upon by a verb. For example, in the sentence Tom studies grammar, the word grammar is the object. Contrast subject.

→ direct object, indirect object

oblique case, objective case

Any case that is neither nominative nor vocative. The term is therefore often plural ("the oblique cases"); but in some languages, such as Hindi and Old French, the oblique is a particular case form, used for example (in Old French) for the direct 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 than archaic, and a much stronger term than dated. See Wiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.

OED

Oxford English Dictionary. Also SOED (Shorter), OED1 (1st edition), OED2 (2nd edition), NOED (New).

onomatopoeia

A word that is meant to sound like what it represents. English examples are kaboom, cuckoo, tweet and ding dong.

optative mood

A category of verb form (a mood) that expresses wishes along with other meanings. Such a category occurs in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.

outdated

see dated

oxytone

With the stress upon the final syllable (e.g. εθνικός (ethnikós)). Compare with paroxytone, proparoxytone, and barytone.

P

p.

post or after, often used in quotations. Hence, a quotation from "p. 1924" is a quotation from no earlier than 1924.

plural.

palatalization

In some cases, the state or quality of being palatalized, i.e. of pronouncing a sound with the tongue against the palate of the mouth that normally is not so pronounced. Some languages, such as Russian and Irish, have pairs of palatalized and unpalatalized consonant phonemes.

In other cases, a sound 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 as yod-coalescence) converted /t/ /d/ /s/ /z/ to /t͡ʃ/ /d͡ʒ/ /ʃ/ /ʒ/ before a /j/ (which was later lost), resulting in the sounds found in nature, procedure, pressure, azure, where the spelling still indicates the sound as it was prior to palatalization. Palatalization still operates synchronically before a /j/, producing, for instance, the pronunciations gotcha and didja from got you and did you. (See also Palatalization)

palindrome

A word, phrase, number or any other sequence of units which has the property of reading the same forwards as it does backwards, character for character, sometimes disregarding punctuation, capitalization and diacritics.

paradigm

A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional forms of a word or a particular grammatical category.

paroxytone

With the stress upon the penultimate (second to last) syllable (e.g., εθνολόγος (ethnológos)). Compare with oxytone, proparoxytone, and barytone.

part of speech (abbreviated POS or PoS)

The category that a word belongs to, with respect to how it's used as part of phrases and sentences. Examples are nouns, adjectives and verbs. 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: English this is both a determiner and a pronoun, while coat is both a noun and a verb.

participle

A form of a verb that may function as an adjective or noun. English has two types of participles: the present participle and the past participle. In other languages, also future, perfect, future perfect participles.

particle

A word that does not fall into the usual part of speech categories, but which modifies another word or the sentence as a whole. The English term like is used as a particle in many dialects. Particles are more common in other Indo-European languages (e.g. German doch, 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). Many clitics 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. French has special partitive articles which qualify indefinite mass nouns.

partitive case

A case that expresses a partial object or an action that is not performed to completion.

passive voice

the voice 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. (see also Voice (grammar))   e.g.: the ball was kicked (by the boy).

past tense

The tense of a verb 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 is saw in I saw my friend yesterday.

past perfect

Same as pluperfect.

penultima

The next-to-last syllable of a word.

perfect

The aspect of a verb, indicating that the action described is completed. Consists of the verb 'have' + the past participle e.g., 'Tom has painted the fence' 'Tom has taken medicine'. Depending on the tense of 'have' 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 also Imperfect. Not to be confused with perfective.

perfective

The aspect of a verb, which denotes viewing the event the verb describes as a completed whole, rather than from within the event as it unfolds. For example, "she sat down" as opposed to "she was sitting down". Since the focus is on the completion of what is expressed by the verb, this aspect is generally associated with the past and future tenses. Common in Slavic languages such as Russian. This term is often used interchangeably with aorist aspect. Not to be confused with perfect. (see Perfective aspect)

periphrastic

Using more words to produce a grammatical effect. For example more fair is a periphrastic form of fairer. The English future tense requires periphrastic usage: "I will write an essay." (Compare monolectic and polylectic.)

person, grammatical person

A grammatical category that indicates the relationship between the speaker and what is being spoken of. Examples are first person, second person and third person.

phrase

1. A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence, usually consisting of a head, or central word, and elaborating words. Examples are the good boy (a noun phrase), very strange (an adjective phrase), and in the house (a prepositional phrase). Normally distinguished from a clause, a similar group of words that contains a verb.
2. Same as set phrase.

plosive

A consonant sound produced by completely blocking the airflow through the mouth for a short time. In English, the plosives are voiceless /p/, /t/, /k/ (as in the initial sounds of pea, tea, key) and the corresponding voiced sounds /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ (as in the initial sounds of buy, die, guy). Plosives are distinguished from fricatives, in which the air is mostly but not completely blocked, enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, and approximants, in which the airflow is only slightly constricted, resulting in a smooth sound.

pluperfect

A verb form of perfect aspect and past tense, 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.

A grammatical number that indicates multiple items or individuals. Most languages contrast it with singular, in which case plural indicates two or more. Some languages also possess the dual or even trial numbers; in these cases the plural indicates more than the highest specific number.

pluralia tantum

Nouns that are mostly or exclusively used in the plural form.

plural only

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 as pants in the senses of "trousers" and "underpants", or wheels in the sense of "car", is plural only or a plurale tantum. In practice, most pluralia tantum are found in the singular in rare cases. (See Wiktionary::Category:English pluralia tantum.) Contrast words which are singular only (singularia tantum|singulare tantum|singularia tantum).

phono-semantic compound

.

A Chinese character (CJKV character) composed of a component which is related to the meaning the character and another component which is related to the sound of the character.

polylectic

Used of a grammatical form accomplished with more than one word (Wiktionary:cf monolectic and periphrastic).

portmanteau

A blend that combines meanings.

positive

The 'normal' form of the degrees of comparison of an adjective or adverb. Thus big is the positive form of the trio big, bigger, biggest.

postpositive

Placed after the word modified.

preconsonantal

Immediately preceding a consonant or consonant sound.

predicate

The part of a sentence that follows the subject. This generally consists of the verb and any objects. It can also consist of a linking verb (e.g. "to be", "to seem", etc.) and a following adjective, which is termed a predicate adjective or predicative adjective (contrasted with an attributive adjective, which directly modifies a noun). An example would be good in The food is good. Some languages, such as German and Russian, have a special declension for predicate adjectives.

predicative

Describes a term that acts as the predicate or part of the predicate of a sentence (e.g. a predicative adjective, such as good in The food is good). In Russian, it often specifically refers to an adjective-like part of speech that serves as the entire predicate of a sentence in an impersonal construction. Such constructions often cannot be translated word-for-word in English. An example is ску́чно (skúčno, “it is boring”) in the sentence мне ску́чно (mne skúčno, “I am bored”, literally “It is boring to me”).

prefix

A morpheme added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning.

prescriptive

(as a context label for a word or phrase) Correct and consistent according to linguistic rules, but not in general use.

prevocalic

Immediately preceding a vowel or vowel sound.

preposition

A word, normally non-inflecting, that is typically employed to connect a following noun or pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word. Examples of prepositions in English are in, from and during. Note that some languages have postpositions instead of prepositions; they function like prepositions but come after the noun or pronoun being connected.

prepositional case

A case used in certain languages, especially Russian, after certain prepositions. In Russian, it corresponds to the locative case in other Slavic languages.

present tense

The tense of a verb used primarily to refer to an event, transaction, or occurrence happening now or at the present time. The verb see in I 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 (where leave is a present verb that refers to the future), or: John Lennon dies of gunshot wounds (as in a headline, where dies is a present verb that refers to the past; see historical 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-present verb

In Germanic languages, a verb that displays (or historically displayed) ablaut in the present tense, and thereby had present tense forms resembling the past (or preterite) tense of a strong verb. Most languages have no more than a handful of such verbs, and they are often used as auxiliary verbs. English examples are shall, can, may. Contrast strong verb, weak verb.

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

The aspect of a verb, indicating that the action described is, was or will be continuing, uncompleted or repeated. A verb form indicating that an action is in progress. In English, formed from a combination of 'be' + 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, the imperfective aspect. See also continuous.

pronominal verb

A form of verb that has an attached pronoun, prominent feature of Romance and Slavic languages. The verb-pronoun combination can have reflexive, reciprocal, passive, subjective or idiomatic semantics.

pronoun

A part of speech that acts as a substitute for a noun or noun 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, which is the case for pronouns I and you. Other pronouns, such as he, she, and it, can be used to refer to other people or objects that have already been mentioned without repeating their names.

proparoxytone

With the stress upon the antepenultimate (third to last) syllable (e.g., εθνικότητα (ethnikótita)). Compare with oxytone, paroxytone, and barytone.

proper noun

A kind of noun that usually refers to a specific, unique thing, such as Earth and the Alps, though one language's proper noun may translate to another language using a common (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 as German, 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 plural Johns meaning “people named John”).

proscribed

Some educators or other authorities recommend against the listed usage. Labeling entries as proscribed is proscribed: some educators recommend against the labeling.

prothesis

The prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in nother, from other (“a whole nother thing”), or Spanish esfera from Latin sphaera (“sphere”).

proverb

A phrase expressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations.

R

reanalysis

Analyzing a lexeme with a different structure from its original, often by misunderstanding. For example, hamburger, which is originally Hamburg + -er, was reanalyzed as ham + -burger, which produced words like cheeseburger.

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 of Wiktionary:hamburger as ham + burger (rather than Hamburg + -er) is an example of rebracketing. Also called metanalysis.

reciprocal

Used to indicate that subjects have other subjects as object. Pronouns can be reciprocal (in English each other), as well as verbs reciprocal quality as lexemes.

reconstruction

A word that is not recorded in actual texts or other media, but has been recreated from its descendant forms, using the comparative method of linguistics.

reducible

In the Slavic languages, a word (especially a noun or adjective) with an alternation between a vowel and no vowel in different forms of the word, pursuant to Havlík’s law. In Russian, for example, the reducible masculine noun вене́ц (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 singular венца́ (vencá), nominative plural венцы́ (vencý).

reduplication

The repetition of a word or a part of a word (as few as two phonemes in a word, or the whole sequence of phonemes in the word) with no change or slight change. Compare haplology, the elision of a repeated part of a word.

reflexive

Referring back to the subject, or having an object equal to the subject. Pronouns can be reflexive (e.g. Wiktionary:myself, oneself). Romance|Romance language|Romance and Slavic languages make extensive use of reflexive verb forms (e.g. Italian lavarsi, Spanish lavarse (“to wash oneself”)). These are part of a larger group of pronominal verbs.

register

Has two meanings. In sociolinguistics, and most commonly in this dictionary, it refers to a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting, and encompasses variants such as slang, colloquial, informal, normal, formal, etc. In phonology, it refers to a phonological property of a syllable in certain languages where the features of tone, phonation (e.g. breathy voice and creaky voice) and glottalization are interrelated. Burmese and Vietnamese are noted languages with register systems in their phonology.

related terms

Words in the same language that have strong etymological connections but are not derived terms.

relational

Refers to a type of adjective in some languages, e.g. Latin, Ancient Greek and the Slavic languages, that takes the place of a noun when it modifies another noun. Consider an English phrase such as chicken soup. In English, this phrases can be constructed by simply placing a noun such as chicken in the position normally occupied by an adjective, i.e. directly before the noun. In languages such as Russian, however, this cannot be done, and instead the word ку́рица (kúrica, “chicken”) must be replaced by the relational adjective кури́ный (kurínyj, “related to chickens”) when forming the Russian equivalent кури́ный суп (kurínyj sup, “chicken soup”). Generally, adjectives of this sort cannot be qualified by more, less or very.

relative

1. Marking a relative clause. Often used of pronouns, such as the tree which....
2. In the Bantu languages, a part of speech that resembles an adjective in function, but behaves morphologically and syntactically like a relative clause.

relative clause

A subordinate clause that modifies a noun. In The man who I saw yesterday is leaving today, the clause who I saw yesterday is a relative clause. In English, relative clauses are often introduced by a relative pronoun such as who, which or that, but other languages often have different strategies for marking relative clauses. (see Relative clause)

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 also Appendix:Glossary of rhetoric.

rhetorical question

A question to which the speaker does not expect an answer

Romanization, Romanisation

Transliteration of a string in a non-Latin script into the Latin or Roman one: for instance, συγγνώμη can be romanized as singnómi.

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 all affixes are removed. For example, in insubordination, the root is ord, while in unspeakableness it is speak. The root is often the first part of the word (as in Uralic and often in Indo-European languages), but it may also be the last part, or it may only consist of the consonants of the word (as in the Afro-Asiatic languages).

S

s., sg.

Singular.

SAMPA

SAMPA, a set of systems for representing the phonemes of various languages in plain ASCII text. Not to be confused with X–SAMPA, the system for representing the full International Phonetic Alphabet in plain ASCII text.

script

A writing system adapted to a particular language or set of languages.

second person, 2nd person

A grammatical person that indicates the person or group that one is speaking to. Examples are the English pronouns you and thou.

semelfactive

A verbal aspect, a subclass of perfective, which denotes a momentary or punctual event (e.g. to sneeze, to blink, to knock). In Slavic languages such as Russian, often used to express actions performed once. (See Semelfactive)

sentence

A syntactic unit that expresses a complete thought and consists of one or more clauses joined together.

set phrase

Set phrase, a common expression (a phrase) whose wording is not subject to variation, or alternately, whose words cannot be replaced by synonymous words without compromising the meaning. Set phrases may include idioms, proverbs, and colloquialisms. For example, flight simulator is a set phrase because it has a special meaning that flying simulator doesn't.

shortening

A shortened form of a word(s), including abbreviations, acronyms, contractions, initialisms, short forms.

short form

A shortened term which is itself a stand-alone term; eg. Acts, a short form used to refer to Acts 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.)

simile

A figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another, in the case of English, generally using like or as; see metaphor and figurative.

singular, singular number, sg. , s

A grammatical number that indicates exactly one item or individual. Usually contrasts with plural, and, in some cases, with dual.

singulative, singulative number, SGV

The marked singular form of an unmarked mass noun.

Sino-Xenic

Refers to pronunciations in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese languages (grouped with Chinese as CJKV) of terms or components derived from medieval Chinese.

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 in formal contexts.

Slavic first palatalization

A specific occurrence of palatalization that occurred in the Proto-Slavic language, in which the velar consonants *k *g *x when followed by any of the front vowels *e *ě *ь *i became the sounds *č *ž *š, respectively. The Slavic first palatalization is still an active process in many modern Slavic languages. For example, before certain suffixes in Russian, the consonants к г х ц become ч ж ш ч respectively. Other Slavic languages behave similarly. (See Slavic first palatalization)

Slavic progressive palatalization

A specific occurrence of palatalization that occurred in the Proto-Slavic language, in which the velar consonants *k *g *x when preceded by either of the front vowels *ь *i (possibly with an intervening n) became the sounds *c dz s/š, respectively, with s occurring in East and South Slavic but š occurring in West Slavic. (See Slavic progressive palatalization)

snowclone

A type of cliché which uses an old idiom formulaically in a new context. (See Snowclone)

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. (See Spelling pronunciation)

stem

The part of an inflected word that the ending is attached to. For example, Latin mens- (stem, "table") + -ae (ending, 1st-declension nominative plural) → mensae (full word, "tables", nominative plural).

stratum

A language that influences another by contact, 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 as substrate, superstrate, or adstrate.

strong pronoun

(Greek) An emphatic pronoun.

strong verb

In Germanic languages, a verb that displays ablaut. More specifically, a verb that has a change in vowel between present and past. An English example is drink, 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. Contrast weak verb, preterite-present verb.

subject

In a clause: the word or word group (usually a noun phrase) that is dealt with. In active clauses with verbs denoting an action, the subject and the actor are usually the same. Contrast object.

subjunctive mood

The mood of a verb expressing an action or state which is hypothetical or anticipated rather than actual, including wishes and commands. An English example is were in if I were rich, ….

subordinate clause

Same as dependent clause.

substantive

A noun or adjective (or phrase), that names a real object with substance. This is in contrast to an attributive noun or adjective, which names a real object that carries the attributes of the named noun or adjective.

substratum

A language stratum which has lower cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. In many cases, historical substrate languages have gone extinct without ever having been attested, and so must be inferred from their influences on surviving or attested languages. One such example is the Pre-Greek substratum.

suffix

A morpheme added to the end of a word to modify its meaning.

superlative

An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, denoting "to the ultimate extent" (see also comparative and degrees of comparison). In English, the superlative form is often formed by appending -est, or using the word most. For example, the superlative of big is "biggest"; of confident, "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.

superstratum

A language stratum which has higher cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. One historical example is the superstrate effect of Old Norman French on late Old English in the centuries following the 11th-century Norman conquest of England.

supine

A term for an infinite verb form in some languages. In Latin, a type of verbal noun, used for the ablative and accusative case of an infinitive. In Swedish, a form related to the past participle, used to form perfect 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 and went; be, is, and was. One or more of these forms, or the entire paradigm of the word, may then be called suppletive. Examples from various languages may be found from :Category:Suppletive verbs by language.

surface etymology

The apparent etymology of a term based on components occurring in the form of the language at a later point in time (see synchrony), such as earth + -en for earthen, which actually occurred in Old English as eorthene.

syllable

A unit of human speech that is interpreted by the listener as a single sound. (See Syllable)

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 to diachrony). A purely synchronic analysis of a word or phrase (as e.g. from the intuition of a speaker of the language) which differs from its precise etymological derivation is termed a surface analysis.

syncope

The deletion or elision of sounds inside a word (not at the beginning or end), most often a single vowel, but sometimes a consonant or a sequence of vowels or consonants.

syncretism

The situation in which two or more inflected forms of a word are identical. For example, walked is both the simple past and the past participle of walk, and is the neuter nominative, accusative, and vocative singular of .

synonym

A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, another word or phrase. Contrast antonym.

T

tense

One of the forms of a verb, used to distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists. The basic tenses in many languages are present, past, future. (see Grammatical tense)

thematicization

Insertion of a thematic vowel on the root or stem of the word to make it undergo one of the productive vocalic inflections.

third person, 3rd person

A grammatical 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 pronouns he, she, it, this, that, and so on. All nouns are generally considered third person.

tmesis

The insertion of one or more words between the components of a compound word.

tone

The pitch of a given syllable in languages where changing the pitch changes the basic meaning of the word. In Mandarin Chinese, for example, the word pronounced /ma/ (like English ma), 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".

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 phrase topic, with the topic marker.

tr., tran.

Translator or translated, often used in quotations.

transferred sense, transf.

A (usually looser) meaning of a word or phrase developed from a metaphorical 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 more objects (e.g. I kick the ball); contrast intransitive verb. (See also Transitivity (grammar))

translation hub

An English multi-word entry that may be sum of parts and is there to host translations and enable navigation from one non-English entry to another non-English entry. An example: English studies.

transliteration

The conversion of text in one script into an equivalent in another script. This may include the conversion of diacritical marks into alternate forms without diacritical marks (e.g. Mörder → Moerder).

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 the United Kingdom.

unadapted borrowing

A loanword that has not been conformed to the morpho-syntactic, phonological and/or phonotactical rules of the target language. For example, English cubiculum is an unadapted borrowing from Latin cubiculum, while English cubicle is a standard borrowing from the same Latin word.

uncomparable, not comparable

(of adjectives) unable to be compared, or lacking a comparative and superlative function. See comparable. Examples of adjectives that are not comparable: annual, first, extra, satin, six-figure.

uncountable, uncountable noun, mass noun

A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and which therefore usually takes no plural form. For example, the English noun information 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). Similarly, the main sense of butter is the uncountable sense, so the plural form butters is seldom used, although it occasionally is used to mean "types of butter" (many herb butters contain garlic) or "[packets of] butter" (the latter represents a class of exceptions in which uncountable nouns may be used in the plural form as an implicit reference to the container: get me a water, order two sodas, have a few beers). Many languages do not distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns. Antonym: countable, or count noun.

undeclinable

see: indeclinable

univerbation

A single word formed from a fixed expression of several words. For example, the single word albeit comes from the Middle English expression al be it, in which al means although.

usage notes

Additional information on current and historic use of the term in written or spoken language.

V

velar

A consonant made with the tongue touching the soft palate (also known as the velum). In English these include /k/, /ɡ/, /ŋ/, as in the final consonants of sack, sag, and sang, respectively.

verb

A word that indicates an action, occurrence or state of being. The inflection of verbs is commonly called conjugation.

verlan

A type of backslang used in French, in which the order of the syllables or sounds of words is changed, usually with the last syllable coming first.

virile

In Slavic languages, a plural gender used for groups that include men and for masculine personal nouns.

vocative case

A case which indicates that someone or something is being directly addressed (spoken to), often by name. For example, in the English phrase He's dead, Jim the name Jim would be a vocative.

voice

A verb characteristic (expressed in some languages by inflection) indicating its relationship with the subject. The usual voices are: active, passive and middle. see also Voice (grammar)

voiced

A sound produced with vibration of the vocal cords; a type of voicing.

voiceless

A sound produced without vibration of the vocal cords; a type of voicing.

voicing

A characteristic of sounds, indicating whether they are produced with vibration of the vocal cords. In English, all vowels are voiced, as well as all approximant consonants, but plosive and fricative 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 a syllable.

vulgar

Language considered distasteful or obscene.

W

Wanderwort or wanderword

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 of loanword, but a Wanderwort may or may not be an areal word. See also Kulturwort. Contrast strata.

weak pronoun

A pronoun of one syllable which is dependent on another word and cannot be used on its own; sometimes called clitic. Compare with emphatic or strong.

weak verb

In Germanic languages, a verb that forms the past tense using a suffix containing a dental 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 English think, thought and have, had. Contrast strong verb, preterite-present verb.

WMF

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., the parent organization of Wiktionary and other projects.

women's speech

In certain languages (for example, Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.

X

X-SAMPA

Extended SAMPA, a system for representing the full International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in plain text (ASCII). For a template that converts X-SAMPA to IPA, see {{x2i}}.

Z

zero-grade

In Proto-Indo-European linguistics, an ablaut form of a root characterized by the absence of the basic ablauting vowel phonemes */e/ and */o/. For example, *bʰr̥- is the zero-grade of the Indo-European root *bʰer- meaning ‘to carry, bear’.

cs:Příloha:Slovníček jazykovědných pojmů de:Hilfe:Wortart fa:Appendix:Glossary fr:Annexe:Glossaire grammatical lb:Hëllef:Wuertart te:Appendix:Glossary th:ภาคผนวก:อภิธาน uk:Вікісловник:Умовні скорочення