semantic
Of or relating to semantics or the meanings of words.
Adjective
- Of or relating to semantics or the meanings of words.
- Reflecting intended structure and meaning.
- Petty or trivial; (of a person or statement) quibbling, niggling.
Origin
Borrowed from Ancient Greek σημαντικός (sēmantikós). Compare French sémantique.
Antonyms
Related
semantical semantics semasiology sematic sematology seme sememe semiotic semiotics
Derived
asemantic autosemantic biosemantic endosemantic episemantic ethnosemantic exosemantic extrasemantic grammaticosemantic isosemantic lexicosemantic metasemantic monosemantic morphosemantic neurosemantic nonsemantic phonosemantic phono-semantic compound phono-semantic matching polysemantic presemantic psychosemantic quasisemantic semanteme
Noun
- In such writing systems as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a phono-semantic character that provides an indication of its meaning; contrasted with phonetic.
- Its semantic is polysyllabic, viz. it uses the word formations of spoken Chinese. - 2005, Friedrich Alexander Bischoff, Yinglin Wang, San tzu ching explicated, the classical initiation to classic Chinese couplet I to...
- In this particular case, the semantic is on the left of its host sinogram. - 2013, William S-Y. Wang, Love and War in Ancient China: Voices from the Shijing, page 25:
- The 亻(人) ren2 'person' semantic has been replaced by 氵(水) shui3 'water' semantic in浸, but帚 zhou3 'broom' has phonetically or semantically nothing to do with 浸 and is just a residue of 侵 after亻(人) ren2 'person' has been...