lexicale

Lexicale is the feminine form of the French adjective meaning related to a lexicon or vocabulary. In linguistics and lexicography, it is used to describe elements, concepts, or phenomena that pertain to words and their organization within a language’s mental or written store of vocabulary. The English cognate lexical shares the same origin, from Greek lexis "word," via Latin and French.

In practice, lexical is used in terms such as entrée lexicale (a lexical entry), catégorie lexicale (a lexical category), and champ lexical (a lexical field). The term is commonly contrasted with grammatical or functional aspects of language. Lexical items—nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs—carry semantic content and contribute to meaning, whereas function words like prepositions, determiners, and conjunctions are often described as non-lexical or grammatical.

In lexicography, lexical pertains to the organization of words in dictionaries and word lists, including senses, etymology, and usage notes. The study of lexical phenomena, or lexicology, analyzes word formation, semantic relationships, polysemy, and collocations. The concept is widely used across languages, with French terminology frequently employing agreements such as lexicalité or entrée lexicale to denote related entries or categories.

Overall, lexicale functions as a key descriptor in language sciences for anything connected to the vocabulary of a language, its words, their forms, meanings, and how they are organized and used.