Lexikos

Lexikos is a term used in linguistics and lexicography to refer to the vocabulary of a language or to aspects relating to words themselves. The word is derived from the Greek lexikos, meaning "of words" or "relating to speech," from lexis meaning "word, speech." In English, the root appears in words such as lexical and lexicon, while lexikos may occur as a direct transliteration or as part of specialized academic usage.

In scholarly contexts, lexikos can denote either the lexical dimension of language—the complete set of words and their meanings in a language—or the study of that dimension. It encompasses the organization, meaning, and usage of lexical items, their inflections, collocations, and semantic relations such as synonymy and polysemy. Lexical studies intersect with lexicography, which is the practice of compiling and editing dictionaries, and with lexical semantics, which examines word meaning and argument structure.

Lexikos also appears in discussions and titles within linguistic and lexicographic literature as a way to signal focus on words, their stock, and their theoretical or practical treatment. Nevertheless, in everyday English usage, lexikos is not a common stand-alone term and is more frequently encountered as a root in related words or in Greek-derived academic phrases.

See also: Lexicon, Lexicography, Lexical semantics, Lexeme, Vocabulary.