meronym

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Contents

English

Etymology

mero- + -onym, from Ancient Greek μέρος (meros, part) + ὄνομα (onoma, name).

Noun

meronym (plural meronyms)

  1. (semantics) 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".
    • 1998, George A. Miller, “Nouns in WordNet”, in Christiane Fellbaum (editor), Wordnet: An Electronic Lexical Database,[1] MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-06197-X, page 38,
      If one starts with some complex whole, like {automobile} or {human_body}, it can be broken down into several levels of meronyms, but many of those meronyms will also be meronyms of other wholes. That is to say, some components serve as parts of many different things: think of all the different mechanisms that have gears.

Antonyms

  • (word denoting part of whole): holonym

Derived terms

Holonyms

Translations

See also


Swedish

Noun

meronym c

  1. (semantics) meronym

Declension