polysemy
/pəˈlɪsəmi/
a single word having multiple related meanings
polysemy in a sentence
“The polysemy of 'bank' (river/financial) causes ambiguity.”
Origin of polysemy
Greek poly- (many) + sema (sign)
Related Words
disambiguation
resolving which meaning is intended when multiple are possible
compositionality
the meaning of a whole derived from its parts and their arrangement
lexicon
the vocabulary of a language; a mental dictionary of words
phoneme
the smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning
morpheme
the smallest meaningful unit in a language
semantics
the study of meaning in language; what words and sentences signify