hypernyms

Hypernyms are words whose meanings include the meanings of more specific words. In lexical semantics, a hypernym (also called a superordinate) is a general term at a higher level in a taxonomy that covers a set of more specific terms, known as hyponyms. The hypernymy relationship is directional: X is a hypernym of Y if Y is a kind or instance of X. The relationship is transitive: if A is a hypernym of B and B is a hypernym of C, then A is a hypernym of C. The converse relation is hyponymy.

Examples illustrate the hierarchy: animal is a hypernym of dog and cat; dog is a hyponym of animal. Vehicle is a hypernym of car; car is a hyponym of vehicle. Rose is a hyponym of flower; flower is a hypernym of rose. The exact hypernyms chosen can depend on granularity and domain.

In linguistics and natural language processing, hypernyms are used to build taxonomies and ontologies and to support tasks such as word sense disambiguation, semantic search, and information retrieval. WordNet and similar resources organize words into synsets connected by hypernym and hyponym links, forming hierarchical structures that reflect general-to-specific relationships.

Note that hypernymy is an is-a relationship, distinct from meronymy (part-of) or holonymy (whole-of). Hypernymy is a fundamental tool for lexical organization and semantic querying across languages.