Now updated for CSW19. New words, if any, and new inflections of existing words, are shown in red.
| abessive | a grammatical case indicating absence or lack. |
| ablatival | relating to the ABLATIVE case. |
| ablative | (a case) indicating direction from or time when > ABLATIVES, ABLATIVELY. |
| ablaut | vowel change in related words, esp. that in Indo-European, which survives in English in, e.g., sing, sang, sung, song. |
| absolutive | a type of grammatical case. |
| accidence | the science of inflections in grammar. |
| accusatival | relating to the ACCUSATIVE. |
| accusative | a case indicating the direct object of a verb. |
| actant | a noun phrase functioning as the agent of the main verb of a sentence. |
| active | expressing action > ACTIVELY; (noun) the active mood of a verb. |
| adessive | (a case) indicating place where or proximity to. Cf. ABESSIVE. |
| adjective | added, dependent > ADJECTIVELY; (noun) a word added to a noun to qualify it. |
| adnominal | pertaining to an ADNOUN; adjectival; (noun) a word attached to a noun. |
| adnoun | an adjective used as a noun. |
| adverb | a word used to modify the meaning of a verb, adjective, or other adverb. |
| adverbial | relating to an adverb > ADVERBIALLY; (noun) an adverbial phrase > ADVERBIALS. |
| agentive | a grammatical case indicating the agent performing an action. |
| agrammatical | not grammatical. |
| allative | a grammatical case indicating movement towards. Cf. ELATIVE, ILLATIVE. |
| amphibology amphiboly | a grammatically ambiguous phrase or sentence. |
| anacoluthia | a non-sequential syntactic construction in which the latter part of a sentence does not grammatically fit the earlier. |
| anacoluthic | relating to ANACOLUTHIA. |
| anacoluthon | a sentence or construction lacking grammatical sequence > ANACOLUTHA or ANACOLUTHONS. |
| antepenult | the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable or word. |
| antibarbarus | a list of words and sayings to be avoided in the classical usage of a language > ANTIBARBARUSES. |
| antonym | a word opposite in meaning to another. |
| antonymic antonymous | like an ANTONYM. |
| antonymy | the state of being an ANTONYM. |
| aorist | (a tense) expressing simple past time with no continuance. [Gk. aoristos, indefinite]. |
| aoristic | indefinite; pertaining to the AORIST > AORISTICALLY. |
| apathaton | (Shakesp.) = EPITHETON, an epithet. |
| apodosis | the main clause in a conditional sentence > APODOSES. [Gk. apodosis, from apo, back, + didonai. to give]. |
| apposition | the position of a word parallel to another in syntactic relation. |
| appositive | relating to APPOSITION; (noun) a clause in apposition. |
| aptote | a noun that has no grammatical cases. Cf. MONOPTOTE, TRIPTOTE, TETRAPTOTE. |
| aptotic | uninflected; indeclinable. |
| asemantic | not semantic. |
| assertoric | stating a fact, as opposed to expressing an evaluative judgment. |
| asyndetic | not connected by conjunctions: I came, I saw, I conquered. |
| asyntactic | loosely put together, irregular, ungrammatical. |
| atelic | pertaining to a type of verb form. |
| athematic | without a thematic vowel. |
| bahuvrihi | (Sanskrit) a class of compound words where the first element describes the second but cannot substitute for it, e.g. turncoat. |
| biliteral | consisting of two letters; as, a biliteral root of a Sanskrit verb. |
| cacology | bad choice of words or faulty pronunciation. |
| catachresis | the use of a wrong word for the context; the strained use of a word or phrase. |
| causal | relating to cause > CAUSALLY; (noun) a word expressing a cause or reason > CAUSALS. |
| causative | relating to causation > CAUSATIVELY; (noun) a causative agency; a causative word > CAUSATIVES. |
| clausal | relating to a clause. |
| clause | a distinct part of a composition. |
| clausula | a short clause ending a period in Latin prose > CLAUSULAE. |
| clausular | consisting of, or having, clauses. |
| cohyponym | a word which is one of multiple hyponyms of another word. |
| comitative | expressing accompaniment; (noun) a comitative case. |
| conjugable | that can be conjugated. |
| conjugate | joined, connected > CONJUGATELY; (verb) to give the various inflections or parts of (a verb). |
| conjugateness | the state of being CONJUGATE. |
| construe | to analyse the grammatical construction of (a sentence). |
| construer | one who construes. |
| copula | a word which unites the subject and predicate > COPULAE or COPULAS. |
| copular | relating to a COPULA. |
| copulative | a CONJUNCTION that indicates combination e.g. 'and'. |
| datival | relating to a DATIVE. |
| dative | a grammatical case, indicating the indirect object of a verb > DATIVES, DATIVELY. |
| deictic | relating to the time and place of utterance > DEICTICS, DEICTICALLY. |
| deixis | the use of words relating to the time and place of utterance > DEIXES or DEIXISES. |
| denominal | derived from a NOUN. |
| denotive | serving to denote. |
| deponent | a verb having a passive form but active meaning. |
| desinence | an ending or termination, especially the terminal inflection of a word. |
| desinent desinential | terminal, especially of the terminal inflection of a word. |
| deverbal | (a word) deriving from a verb. |
| diaeresis diereses | the separation or resolution of one syllable into two; cf. SYNAERESIS > DIAERESES, DIERESES. [Gk. diairesis separation]. Also DIERESIS. |
| diaeretic | pertaining to DIAERESIS, the separation or resolution of one syllable into two. |
| dieretic | of or like DIERESIS, the separation of two vowels into two syllables. |
| disyllable | a word with two syllables, |
| disyllabic | having two syllables. |
| durative | (a tense) denoting continuing action. |
| dvandva | (Sanskrit) a compound word in which neither element is subordinated to the other, e.g. tragicomedy. |
| elative | of a grammatical case, indicating movement away from. Cf. ILLATIVE, ALLATIVE. |
| emic | a type of linguistic analysis > EMICS. |
| enallage | the exchange of one grammatical case for another, as of singular for plural, present for past tense, etc. |
| enclisis | the state of being an ENCLITIC > ENCLISES. |
| enclitic | dependent, especially of a word or particle attached to the preceding word: in "Give 'em the works" the particle em has no independent accent and forms an accentual and graphemic unit with "give". |
| endeictic | showing, exhibiting or demonstrating. [Gr. endeiktikos]. |
| endeixis | an indication > ENDEIXES or ENDEIXISES. [Gk. endeiktikos]. |
| epithesis | the addition of one or more letters to a word > EPITHESES. |
| epithet | an ADJECTIVE or adjectival phrase; (verb) to apply an epithet to > EPITHETS, EPITHETING, EPITHETED. |
| epitheton | an EPITHET > EPITHETONS. |
| equative | in grammar, denoting identity or equivalence. |
| equivoke equivoque | an ambiguous term; a word susceptible of different significations. |
| ergative | a grammatical case found in certain languages > ERGATIVES. |
| ergativity | the state of being ERGATIVE, a grammatical case found in certain languages. |
| essive | a case in Finnish and certain other languages expressing a continuous state of being. |
| etic | a type of linguistic analysis > ETICS. |
| etymic | relating to the ETYMON, the original form of a word, as, an etymic word. |
| etymon | an earlier word form; a morpheme from which derivatives are formed > ETYMA or ETYMONS. |
| exocentric | not fulfilling the grammatical role of any of its constituents; as in until last Easter, where the constituents are prepositional, adjectival, and nominal, while the whole construction is adverbial. |
| extremal | a clause in a recursive definition. |
| factive | designating or pertaining to a verb taking an assumed fact as object (e.g. English know, regret, resent). |
| finite | limited > FINITELY; (noun) a finite verb > FINITES. |
| genitival | relating to the GENITIVE case > GENITIVALLY. |
| genitive | (a grammatical case) indicating possession, origin or relation > GENITIVES, GENITIVELY. |
| gerund | a verbal form such as 'cooking' that functions as a noun > GERUNDS. |
| gerundial | pertaining to, or resembling, a GERUND; as, a gerundial use. |
| gerundive | in Latin, the verbal adjective formed from the gerund stem and having the sense 'that can or must be done' > GERUNDIVES, GERUNDIVELY. |
| glosseme | an indivisible unit in a language. |
| grammar | the science which treats of the principles of language; the study of forms of speech, and their relations to one another. |
| grammatic grammatical | belonging to, or according to the rules of, grammar > GRAMMATICALLY. |
| grammaticalness | the state of being GRAMMATICAL. |
| heteroclite | deviating from the ordinary rule; eccentric; (in grammar) irregularly inflected; (noun) an irregularly inflected word. |
| heteroclitic | irregularly inflected. |
| heteronym | a word having same spelling but different sound and meaning e.g. lead/lead. |
| holophrase | a single word expressing sentence or phrase. |
| holophrastic | expressing a sentence in one word, e.g. "Go"; expressing complex ideas in a single word, as in some Eskimo languages. [Gk. holo (whole) + Greek phrastikos, from phrazein (to speak)]. |
| homoeoteleuton | the use of words with similar endings in close proximity. |
| homograph | one of two or more words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation e.g. bow (in hair) and bow (of a ship). |
| homonym | a word having the same sound as another but a different meaning e.g. noun 'quail' and verb 'quail'. |
| homonymic homonymous | like a HOMONYM. |
| homonymy | the state of being a HOMONYM. |
| homophone | a word that sounds the same as another but is spelt differently e.g. 'to', 'too' and 'two'. |
| hypercorrect | refers to a linguistic construction or pronunciation produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage out of a desire to be correct, such as 'open widely' or 'on behalf of my wife and I'. |
| hypercorrection | a grammatical, usage or pronuciation mistake made by 'correcting' something that's right to begin with. |
| hypernym | a word representing a class of words or things, e.g. DOG. |
| hypernymy | the state of being a HYPERNYM. |
| hyponym | a term which is a member of a larger class e.g. spaniel of dog. |
| hyponymy | the state of being a HYPONYM. |
| hypotactic | relating to HYPOTAXIS, a dependent or subordinate relationship of clauses with conjunctions. |
| hypotaxis | a dependent or subordinate relationship of clauses with conjunctions > HYPOTAXES. |
| illative | (a grammatical case) indicating movement into or toward > ILLATIVES, ILLATIVELY. Cf. ELATIVE, ALLATIVE. |
| imparisyllabic | having different number of syllables in different cases. |
| imperative | expressive of command, advice or request > IMPERATIVELY; (noun) a verb in the imperative mood > IMPERATIVES. |
| imperfect | not perfect > IMPERFECTLY; (noun) a verb tense expressing ongoing action in the past > IMPERFECTS. |
| imperfective | expressing action as incomplete or without reference to completion or as reiterated > IMPERFECTIVELY; (noun) an imperfective verb > IMPERFECTIVES. |
| inceptive | marking the beginning or formation > INCEPTIVELY; (noun) an inceptive verb > INCEPTIVES. |
| inchoative | expressing or pertaining to a beginning; inceptive; as, an inchoative verb > INCHOATIVELY. |
| inessive | (a grammatical case) indicating location within) > INESSIVES. |
| inferencing | the practice of inferring the meaning of an unfamiliar word or expression from the meaning of familiar words occurring with it in a context together with one's knowledge of or beliefs about the context. |
| infinitive | expressing the verbal idea without reference to person, number or time > INFINITIVELY; (noun) the infinitive mood; a verb in the infinitive mood > INFINITIVES. |
| inflection inflexion | a change in the form of a word, usually modification or affixation, signalling change in such grammatical functions as tense, voice, mood, person. |
| intensive | making intense > INTENSIVELY; (noun) an intensifier > INTENSIVES. |
| intercalation | an insertion or interposing, as of a word between other words in a sentence. |
| intercalative | relating to INTERCALATION, an insertion or interposing, as of a word between other words in a sentence. |
| jussive | (a mood of a verb) expressing a command > JUSSIVES. |
| lapsus | a slip e.g. of the tongue > LAPSUS. |
| lexeme | the fundamental unit of the lexicon of a language e.g. ind, found, and finding are members of the English lexeme find. |
| lexemic | of or like a LEXEME, one of the vocabulary items of a language. |
| loanshift | the adaptation of a word from one language to another. |
| loanword | a word borrowed from another language. |
| locative | (a grammatical case) signifying place where > LOCATIVES. |
| locution | a form of expression, a phrase. |
| meronym | a word whose relation to another is that of a part to the whole, e.g. whisker to cat. |
| meronymy | the state of being a MERONYM, a word whose relation to another is that of a part to the whole. |
| modal | related to mood > MODALLY; (noun) a modal auxiliary > MODALS. |
| modality | the property of a verb or verbal form that is represented or distinguished by its mood. |
| moneme morpheme | a word or part of a word that contains no smaller unit of meaning. |
| monosemic | having only a single meaning. |
| monoptote | a noun that has one grammatical case only > MONOPTOTES. Cf. TRIPTOTE, TETRAPTOTE. |
| monosemy | the fact of having only one meaning. |
| monosyllable | a word with one syllable. |
| monosyllabic | having only one syllable. |
| morpheme | see MONEME. |
| morphemic | of or like a MORPHEME. |
| morphemics | the study of MORPHEMES. |
| morphology | the study of the forms of words. |
| morphophonemics | linguistic structure in terms of the phonological patterning of MORPHEMES. |
| mumpsimus | an erroneous word or spelling that, through long usage, has become absorbed into the language; an incorrect manuscript reading blindly adhered to by some scholar > MUMPSIMUSES. |
| mutative mutatory | expressing a change of place or state. |
| nominal | only in name > NOMINALLY; (noun) a noun or phrase etc. standing as a noun > NOMINALS. |
| nonpast | a verb form that lacks an inflection for a past tense > NONPASTS. |
| nonstative | denoting a verb describing an action rather than a state, as for example throw or thank as opposed to know or hate; (noun) a nonstative verb. |
| noun | a word used to denote the name of something. |
| nounal | of or pertaining to a noun > NOUNALLY. |
| nounless | without nouns. |
| nouny | having many nouns; having the nature of a noun > NOUNIER, NOUNIEST. |
| nunnation | the addition of a final n in the declension of nouns. |
| optative | a grammatical mood expressing a desire or wish. |
| orthographical | relating to ORTHOGRAPHY, the part of language study that deals with letters and spelling. |
| orthography | a part of language study that deals with letters and spelling. |
| parasynthesis | the derivation of words using hyphenated compounds. |
| paronym | a word from the same root or having the same sound as another. |
| paronymic | of or like a PARONYM. |
| paronymous | having the same derivation; allied radically; conjugate; -- said of certain words, as man, mankind, manhood, etc. |
| paronymy | the quality of being PARONYMOUS; also, the use of paronymous words. |
| parsable | that can be parsed. |
| parse | to describe a word fully in terms of classification. |
| partitive | parting, distributing > PARTITIVELY; (noun) a word indicating a part of a larger whole > PARTITIVES. |
| passive | not active > PASSIVELY; (noun) the passive mood of a verb > PASSIVES. |
| pastless | lacking a past. |
| paucal | a grammatical number in some languages representing a few. |
| pejoration | degeneration of a word or term e.g. "hector" has degenerated from "hero" to scourge. |
| penult penultima | the last but one syllable. |
| perfective | (of a verb aspect) denoting completed action > PERFECTIVELY. |
| perissosyllabic | having an additional syllable. |
| phatic | relating to a communication meant to generate an atmosphere of social relationship rather than to convey some information > PHATICALLY. |
| phrasal | of the nature of a phrase; consisting of a phrase; as, a phrasal adverb > PHRASALLY. |
| pluperfect | of a tense, signifying completion of action before a certain point in past time. |
| plural | more than one > PLURALLY; (noun) a word that expresses more than one. |
| polyseme polysemant | a word with many meanings. |
| polysemic polysemous | relating to a POLYSEME, a word with many meanings. |
| polysemy | the state of having many meanings. |
| polysynthetic | of languages, where whole phrases are combined into one word. |
| postbase | following a base word. |
| postfix | a letter, syllable, or word, added to the end of another word; a suffix; (verb) to suffix. |
| postpositive | of an adjective, placed after the word it modifies e.g. attornery general, Scrabble player manque. |
| predicator | the part of a sentence or clause containing the verbal group. |
| prefix | to add as a prefix (a form affixed to the beginning of a root word). |
| prefixal | relating to a PREFIX > PREFIXALLY. |
| prelexical | denoting or applicable at a stage in the formation of a sentence at which words and phrases have not yet replaced all of the underlying grammatical and semantic material of that sentence in the speaker's mind. |
| prenominal | placed before a noun, esp. (of an adjective or sense of an adjective) used only before a noun. |
| preterit preterite | the grammatical tense signifying past time or a completed action. |
| preteriteness | the state of being PRETERITE. |
| preteritive | used only in the preterite. |
| preverb | a particle or prefix which precedes a verb. |
| privative | indicating absence, deprivation or negation > PRIVATIVELY; (noun) a privative attribute, quality, proposition, or particle > PRIVATIVES. |
| proclitic | a word transferring its stress to the following word. Cf. ENCLITIC. |
| prolative | esp. of an INFINITIVE > serving to continue or complete a predication. |
| pronoun | a word that may be used in place of a noun. |
| prosthetic | of or pertaining to prosthesis; prefixed, as a letter or letters to a word. |
| protasis | the first or introductory clause in a sentence; spec. the clause expressing the condition in a conditional sentence > PROTASES. Cf. APODOSIS. |
| provection | the transferring of a letter from the end of one word to the beginning of the next, eg a newt from an ewt. |
| rankshift | to shift or be shifted from one linguistic rank to another. |
| rection | syntactical government, i.e. the influence of one word over another in determining the case of a noun, the mood of a verb, etc > RECTIONS. |
| reflexive | indicating that the action turns back upon the subject; relating to a reflex > REFLEXIVELY; (noun) a reflexive pronoun or verb > REFLEXIVES. |
| relatival | relative. |
| retronym | a word coined for an existing thing to distinguish it from a new thing. |
| rhematic | of words or verbs; forming a word or words. [Gk. rhema, word]. |
| rheme | the constituent of a sentence that adds the most new information. |
| sandhi | modification of the sound of a word or affix caused by the context in which it is uttered. |
| semanteme | an irreducible linguistic unit of meaning. |
| semantic | of or relating to meaning > SEMANTICALLY. |
| sememe | the smallest unanalysable unit of linguistic meaning (e.g. a word or affix). |
| sememic | pertaining to a SEMEME or meaning of a linguistic unit. |
| semiology semeiology | the study of signs and symbols ((including but not confined to words). |
| semiotics semeiotics | the study of signs and symbols (including but not confined to words) |
| singular | not plural; strange > SINGULARLY; (noun) a singular word or form > SINGULARS. |
| solecise solecize | to commit a SOLECISM. |
| solecism | a nonstandard usage or grammatical construction; a violation of etiquette. |
| solecist | one who commits a SOLECISM. |
| solecize | see SOLECISE. |
| sprachgefuhl | an intuitive sense of what is linguistically appropriate > SPRACHGEFUHLS. |
| statal | of a passive verbal form > expressing a state or condition rather than an action. |
| stative | a verb indicating a state rather than an action. |
| subclause | a part of a CLAUSE. |
| subordinative | containing a subordinate clause or clauses. |
| suffix | to add as a suffix (a form affixed to the end of a root word). |
| suffixal | relating to a SUFFIX. |
| sumpsimus | a correct expression that replaces a popular but wrong one > SUMPSIMUSES. Cf. MUMPSIMUS. |
| supine | lying on the back, passive > SUPINELY; (noun) a Latin verbal noun > SUPINES. |
| svarabhakti | development of a vowel between consonants. |
| syndetic | connected, esp. by conjunctions. |
| syndeton | a type of grammatical construction. |
| synesis | a construction in which a form differs in number but agrees in meaning with the word governing it, e. g. If anyone arrives, tell them to wait > SYNESES or SYNESISES. |
| synonym | a word having the same meaning as another. |
| synonymatic | of, consisting of or relating to synonyms. |
| synonyme | a synonym. |
| synonymic synonymical | like a SYNONYM. |
| synonymise synonymize | to make synonymous. |
| synonymist | a student of synonyms. |
| synonymous | having the character of a synonym > SYNONYMOUSLY. |
| synonymousness | the state of being synonymous. |
| synonymy | the state of being synonymous. |
| syntactic | relating to SYNTAX. |
| syntactics | the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols. |
| syntagm | a syntactic unit comprising one or more (esp. linguistic) signs or elements. |
| syntagma | a syntactic unit comprising one or more (esp. linguistic) signs or elements > SYNTAGMAS or SYNTAGMATA. |
| syntagmic | relating to a SYNTAGMA. |
| syntax | grammatical structure in sentences. |
| tagmeme | any of the positions in the structure of a sentence into which a certain class of grammatical items can fit. |
| tagmemic | relating to TAGMEMES. |
| tagmemics | the analysis of the grammar of a language based on the arrangement of spoken elements. |
| tatpurusha | (Sanskrit) a class of compound words in which the first element modifies the second by standing to it in various types of relation e.g. goatskin, fieldmouse. |
| taxeme | any element of language that can affect the meaning of an utterance. |
| taxemic | relating to a TAXEME, a unit of grammatical relationship. |
| tenseless | without tenses, e.g. a language. |
| tetraptote | a noun that has four grammatical cases only. Cf. APTOTE, MONOPTOTE, TRIPTOTE. |
| tmesis | the separation of the parts of a word by insertion of another word > TMESES. |
| transitive | (a verb) taking a direct object > TRANSITIVES. |
| transitiveness | the state of being TRANSITIVE. |
| trilieral | (a word) consisting of three letters > TRILITERALS. |
| triptote | a noun that has three grammatical cases only. Cf. APTOTE, MONOPTOTE, TETRAPTOTE. |
| trisyllable | a word with three syllables. |
| tuptowing | present participle of TYPTO, to work at Greek conjugation. |
| typto | to work at Greek grammar (literally to conjugate the Greek verb typto, I strike) > TYPTOS, TUPTOWING, TYPTOED. |
| ultima | the last syllable of a word. |
| unmeaning | having no meaning or signification; as, unmeaning words > UNMEANINGLY. |
| verb | a word used to express an act, occurrence, or mode of being. |
| verbid | the non-finite part of a verb. |
| verbify | to convert into a verb. |
| verbing | the use of nouns as verbs. |
| verbless | without a verb. |
| vocative | a grammatical case indicating calling or personal address > VOCATIVES, VOCATIVELY. |
| volitive | a verb expresing desire. |