meginorða

Meginorð is a term used in Icelandic linguistics and lexicography to refer to the lemma or headword of a lexeme—the form of a word that is listed as the entry in dictionaries. The meginorð serves as the canonical base form from which the word’s inflected variants are derived according to Icelandic morphology.

In practice, the meginorð is chosen to be a stable, dictionary-friendly form. For nouns, it is typically the singular nominative; for verbs, the infinitive; for adjectives, the positive form. When discussing more than one headword, the plural or genitive forms of the term are used, such as meginorða to denote multiple headwords.

The concept plays a central role in lexicography, where each dictionary entry begins with its meginorð, followed by information on pronunciation, part of speech, senses, and inflection. Beyond traditional dictionaries, meginorð is a key reference point in linguistic analysis, language teaching, and natural language processing, where it facilitates lemmatization and the grouping of word forms into a single lexical item.

Etymologically, meginorð combines megin, meaning “main” or “principal,” with orð, meaning “word,” underscoring its function as the principal form of a word for indexing and analysis. The term is closely related to the broader concept of a lemma in many languages and is specific to how Icelandic lexicography organizes vocabulary.

See also: lemma, headword, lexeme, Icelandic morphology, lexicography.