menings

Menings is not a standard term in English-language linguistics. When encountered, it is usually a misspelling of meanings or a form borrowed from another language. In Swedish, for example, mening means both sense and opinion, and its plural is meningar. In Dutch, mening likewise means opinion, with the plural meninges. The form menings itself is not commonly used in these languages.

Meaning in linguistics refers to what a word or sentence conveys. Scholars distinguish between semantic meaning (the encoded content of the expression) and pragmatic meaning (how utterances function in a particular context). Related notions include sense and reference, denotation, connotation, and illocutionary force, all of which help explain how language communicates beyond literal words.

Meanings can be layered. The linguistic meaning of a term is what the word stands for in a language’s vocabulary and grammar. Pragmatic meaning depends on factors such as speaker intention, shared knowledge, tone, and situational context. Ambiguity arises when a form yields multiple possible meanings, requiring interpretation to determine the intended message.

Examples illustrate the distinction. The word bank can refer to a financial institution or the side of a river; context disambiguates. A sentence can be true or false depending on its denotation, but its pragmatic force—whether it’s a question, a warning, or an offer—depends on use.

In short, while menings as a plural form is not standard, discussions of meaning rely on established concepts from semantics and pragmatics. Cross-linguistic differences show how languages encode and negotiate meaning and opinion through different lexical choices and grammatical patterns.