holonym

A holonym is a lexical semantic relation in which a word denotes a whole that contains other entities referred to by other words. It is the inverse of meronymy, which specifies the part–whole relationship from the part side. The term holonym comes from Greek holos meaning "whole" and onoma meaning "name."

In practice, a holonym is the term for the whole as opposed to its parts (meronyms). Example: "tree" is a holonym of "branch" and "leaf" because branches and leaves are parts of a tree. Conversely, "branch" is a meronym of "tree." Another example: "car" is a holonym of "wheel" and "engine," which are components of a car. The relationship is directional: a holonym to its meronyms describes containment.

In linguistic resources such as WordNet, holonymy and meronymy are used to map part–whole relations between synsets. Holonymy is not the same as hypernymy; a hypernym expresses a general category (dog is a hypernym of poodle), whereas holonymy concerns physical composition and part-whole structure.

Limitations: The applicability of holonymy depends on how parts and wholes are conceptually defined, which can vary by domain, language, or cultural context. Some composites may have multiple plausible holonyms or may not have a clear one at all.

See also: Meronym, Hypernym, Part–whole relation, WordNet.