multiplemeaning

Multiple meaning is a term used in linguistics to describe words or phrases that have more than one sense in a given language. The phenomenon is commonly described under two related ideas: polysemy and homonymy. Polysemy occurs when a single word form has related senses that originate from a common core meaning (for example, foot can refer to a limb, the base or bottom of something, or a unit of length). Homonymy occurs when different senses share a form but are historically unrelated (for instance, bat, the nocturnal mammal, and bat, the sports implement).

In lexicography and language technology, distinguishing meanings matters for clear communication and computation. Dictionaries typically present multiple senses with definitions, usage examples, and etymologies. In natural language processing, word sense disambiguation seeks to identify the intended sense of a word based on context, often using machine-learning models and sense inventories.

In literature and everyday speech, multiple meanings can be used purposefully, as in puns or double entendres, where a word’s various senses produce humor or rhetorical effect. The study of multiple meaning also informs translation, semantic search, and cross-language information retrieval, where ambiguity must be resolved to convey the correct sense. Related concepts include polysemy, homonymy, semantic ambiguity, and word sense disambiguation.