Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The fundamental unit of the lexicon of a language. Find, finds, found, and finding are forms of the English lexeme find.
Wiktionary
- n. linguistics Roughly, the set of inflected forms taken by a single word, such as the lexeme RUN including as members "run" (lemma), "running" (inflected form), or "ran", and excluding "runner" (derived term).
- n. computing an individual instance of a continuous character sequence without spaces, used in lexical analysis (see token)
WordNet 3.0
- n. a minimal unit (as a word or stem) in the lexicon of a language; `go' and `went' and `gone' and `going' are all members of the English lexeme `go'
Etymologies
- From Latin lexis, from Ancient Greek λέξις (léxis, "word") + -eme a suffix indicating a fundamental unit in some aspect of linguistic structure. Extracted from phoneme, from Ancient Greek φώνημα (phōnēma, "sound"), from φωνέω (phōneō, "to sound"), from φωνή (phōnē, "sound"). (Wiktionary)
- lex(icon) + -eme. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I got hold of an electronic copy of the paper and counted the number of different words it contained grouping inflectional variations, such as walk/walks/walking/walked, as a single item, or lexeme, as linguists call it.”
“However, I've not yet found another lexeme with this same u ~ au alternation.”
“No one questions that the lexeme Nihon consistently means "Japan", not "of Japan" in itself, however and this is how we see it translated in all dictionaries.”
Contradictions with authors' accounts of Etruscan word Rasna
“The f in this lexeme is merely lenition of p neighbouring tautosyllabic u, particularly when the next syllable contains a front vowel.”
Disproving a particular translation of TLE 193 once and for all
“We start with the adjective lexeme OPEN, which is a pure stative; The window is open doesn't require that it was ever closed (it might have been built that way), and The restaurant is open doesn't require that it was ever closed (it could be one of those restaurants that are always open).”
“The way She enunciated it brought Her fulgurant teeth to rest on Her lower lip as the upper lip rose slightly in the f; and then, for the u, Her lips parted as if for a kiss, and they stretched back into smiling as the lexeme culminated so regally in king.”
“Speaking of red, linguists have determined that if any world language has only one a lexeme for a color besides black and white, it is always red.”
“The cases all described are interesting, but now I must ask some questions about a child I new when I was four, who was fluent in 4 languages Is "Quadlingual" a standardised lexeme?”
“A simple glottal stop (not a huge step up from no sound at all) being loaned as a creaky voiced velar stop (a very complex consonant) sounds like, to put it lightly, the kind of a correspondence I'd like to see more than one lexeme pair supporting.”
“Even if it does negate the lexeme, "A -" still means "without," and "without" still refers to the state of being of the person being explained.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lexeme’.
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Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
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Lyngwistix
semantic, semiotic, linguistic, etc.
lexeme, sonorant, prosody, monophthong, portmanteau, dithyramb, inflection, deixis, mondegreen, screed, persiflage, polysemy and 42 more...
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Metawords
Talking about talking, writing about writing, etc.
epizeuxis, tautological, aptote, bibliophagist, parataxis, scriptorium, aposiopesis, variorum, chantefable, boustrophedon, psellism, adoxography and 51 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
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Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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epeolatrist's list
epeolatry, syzygy, sphallolalia, lucubration, lugubrious, cacology, mellifluous, tmesis, synecdoche, anathema, eschatological, razbliuto and 349 more...
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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
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Interesting Scrabble words
Interesting words worth @ least 15 points.
smoochy, zareba, hyphal, djellaba, cloque, pyxidium, qindarka, squiffy, howbeit, chthonic, quinta, azimuthal and 262 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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aozuas's Words
sense data, hyperreality, brouhaha, ibid, apophenia, fnord, lackadaisical, schadenfreude, bildungsroman, ready-made, readymade, tergiversar and 654 more...
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Clearinghouse
For stuff to simply reside.
calcar, pinion, espadrille, antipodes, peregrine, cormorant, tanager, vireo, farrago, undervest, passerine, oscine and 881 more...
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English grammar
terms relevant to English grammar
phrase, clause, sentence, complement, modifier, adjunct, specifier, constituent, syntax, bar level, supplement, coordination and 285 more...
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Good word to know
celerity, obfuscate, incredulity, verisimilitude, cognizance, formidable, sonorous, sinuous, grapheme, semasiology, penchant, desiderium and 31 more...
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linguinteresting
linguisticly interesting
lexeme, periphrastic, snowclone, cornroll, irregardless, wholescale, slanguage, infixation, expletive, nonce, prosodic, reduplication and 26 more...
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Faves and Saves
ersatz, lexeme, simulacrum, lexicon, turpitude, mimeograph, antebellum, lambent, doppelgänger, coquette, cavalier, grit
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lexeme.
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