semanticsn.
/sᵻˈmantɪks/, U.S. /səˈmæn(t)ɪks/ Chiefly with singular agreement.
1. The meaning of signs; the interpretation or description of such meaning; (chiefly Semiotics) the study of the meaning of signs, and of the relationship of sign vehicles to referents.In later use frequently as an extended use of sense 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > intelligibility > meaning > explanation, exposition > interpretation > [noun] > of signs
semantics1874
semiology1923
the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > unit of meaning > [noun] > sign > interpretation of
semantics1874
1874 N. Amer. Rev. Apr. 450 His rather complicated system of semantics, in which χρόνοι τρίσημοι, cyclic dactyls, etc., are throughout distinguished by peculiar signs.
1942 Jrnl. Philos. 39 421 (title) On musical semantics.
1946 C. Morris Signs, Lang. & Behavior viii. 219 Semantics deals with the signification of signs in all modes of signifying... When so conceived, pragmatics, semantics, and syntactics are all interpretable within a behaviorally oriented semiotic.
1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 33 The notion of a curve is so closely connected to sexual semantics that some people cannot resist sniggering at road signs.
1990 S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. 45 130/1 The semantics of symbols are different from the semantics of language.
1996 V. Nicolova in I. Rauch & G. F. Carr Semiotics around World II. 1156 The essence of political semantics consists of the decoding of signs and symbols.
2.
a. The branch of linguistics or philosophy concerned with meaning in language; the study or analysis of meaning in words, sentences, etc. Sometimes more fully as linguistic semantics or philosophical semantics to indicate the field of inquiry (cf. quot. 1995).general semantics, lexical semantics, structural semantics, etc.: see the first element.Within linguistics, semantics was in early use chiefly concerned with meaning change (cf. quots. 1886, 1895); it is now equally concerned with synchronic aspects of meaning, and is one of the main branches of linguistics. The term semantics varies in inclusiveness, sometimes covering only word meaning, sometimes including utterance and discourse meaning (cf. quot. 1989), and sometimes including the meaning of grammatical structures (cf. quot. 1933).Within philosophy, semantics is chiefly concerned with questions of sense and reference. In logic and associated studies, semantics is concerned with the meanings of sentences in a formal or artificial language and the conditions under which these sentences are to count as true.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > [noun]
semasiology1857
sematology1880
semantics1886
semology1911
semanticism1940
the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > [noun] > branches of
semantics1886
lexical semantics1947
structural semantics1955
ethnosemantics1966
1886 tr. A. Darmesteter Life of Words as Symbols of Ideas i. iii. 83 In asking what are the causes of change [in meaning], we touch on the most obscure and most difficult questions connected with semantics [Fr. la sémantique].
1893 E. Williams tr. M. Bréal in Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 24 27 All, or almost all, the chapter of linguistics treating of Semantics, or the science of meanings, has yet to be written.
1895 C. R. Lanman in Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 26 p. xi The doctrine of the principles that underlie the processes of the development of the meanings of words may be called semantics or semasiology.
1900 N. Cust tr. M. Bréal (title) Semantics: studies in the science of meaning [Fr. Essai de sémantique].
1912 E. Weekley Romance of Words 79 The convenient name semantics has been applied of late to the science of meanings, as distinguished from phonetics, the science of sound.
1920 B. Malinowski in Bull. School Oriental Stud. 1 iv. 35 All these works..are résumés of the present state of linguistics, and they reflect the insufficient attention hitherto given to Semantics.
1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. viii. 138 When the phonology of a language has been established, there remains the task of telling what meanings are attached to the several phonetic forms. This phase of the description is semantics. It is ordinarily divided into two parts, grammar and lexicon.
1943 Jrnl. Symbolic Logic 8 81 The fundamental concepts of semantics (such as those of truth and designation).
1952 Economist 21 June 813/2 Professor Hayakawa says nothing about..the importance of semantics in the determination of word-origins and word-history.
1964 E. A. Nida Toward Sci. Translating iii. 35 While semantics deals with the relationship of symbols to referents, syntactics is concerned with the relationship of symbol to symbol.
1989 Brit. Jrnl. Philos. Sci. 40 558 The second [milestone] is the shift from taking words as the focus of semantics to taking sentences as the focus.
1995 J. Lyons Ling. Semantics v. 131 Truth-based theories of the meaning of sentences have been particularly influential in modern times, initially in philosophical semantics, later in linguistic semantics.
2009 J. Munday Routledge Compan. Transl. Stud. (rev. ed.) 224 In semantics, a word's sense is distinguished from its meaning.
b. Chiefly depreciative. The use of words with particular meanings, esp. for euphemistic or tendentious purposes. Also: (the act of making) pedantic distinctions regarding the precise or technical meaning of words; verbal quibbling.
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1920 Soviet Russia 5 June 565/1 The newspaper press sometimes unwittingly presents correct versions of the news, owing to typographical errors on the part of lesser employes. Those whose hobby is in the collection of unintended headline semantics [etc.].
1939 El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post 9 June 4/1 You don't call drunken-sailor governmental extravagance ‘spending’. You call it ‘investing’... This art is called ‘semantics’.
1939 Economist 12 Aug. 314/2 Last autumn's upturn might have been of the ‘flash-in-the-pan’ variety—what is called in Wall Street semantics a ‘soda-water rally’.
1944 Sat. Rev. Lit. (U.S.) 23 Dec. 4/1 The technique of character-assassination instead of arguments is..standard totalitarian semantics.
1966 N.Y. Post 3 Aug. 6/4 Sen. Pastore said that everybody was engaged in semantics. ‘It comes down to a very fine point,’ he said, stating the obvious in a nutshell.
1978 K. Hudson Jargon of Professions 16 Whenever a newsman raises his hand to ask for clarification of some mealy-mouthed statement: ‘I am not going to debate semantics with you,’ the spokesman replies.
1995 S. Dietz Halcyon Days 32 You've learned to give each atrocity a pleasant spin, and the masses mistake your semantics for action.
2008 J. Picoult Change of Heart 26 The doctors say I won't die from AIDS—I'll die from pneumonia or TB..; but if you ask me, that's just semantics. Dead is dead.
3. The (system of) meanings in a language, word, grammatical construction, etc.
ΚΠ
1908 Mod. Lang. Notes 23 38/1 The semantics of rana in this expression require special treatment.
1959 B. Grekov et al. Kiev Rus v. 246 In mediaeval Europe the servus is not a slave, but a serf. The change in the semantics of the word is caused by the changes in the economic and legal status of the servus.
1969 Y. Bar-Hillel in J. Puhvel Substance & Struct. of Lang. 8 English semantics must tell us that from X is a parent of Y one can deduce Y is a child of X.
1987 Multilingua 6 311 Old Norse..was very similar to Old English in syntax and semantics.
1991 Amer. Speech 66 265 What is it about the semantics of on which allows it to become a durative particle?
2006 J. Beusterien Eye on Race 152 The contemporary semantics of negra tells us something about the comedia dance since negra in Puerto Rican and Caribbean Spanish is a term of affection for a woman.
4. A theory or description of meaning.
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1957 Southwestern Jrnl. Anthropol. 13 211 Linguistic field-theory..proposes just such a structural semantics as Hoijer suggests.
1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Mar. 268/1 Frege's goal was not to provide a semantics for natural language as he found it.
1991 Word 42 253 A formal semantics for an artificial language has three parts.
2004 W. Croft & D. A. Cruse Cognitive Linguistics ii. 14 The replacement of a truth-conditional semantics with a semantics of understanding.
5. Computing. The meaning of the strings in a programming language. Frequently contrasted with syntax n. 4.
ΚΠ
1964 IEEE Trans. Electronic Computers 13 343/2 A compiler and a description of the machine for which it compiles is a complete and formal description of the syntax (i.e., grammar) and semantics (i.e., meaning).
1984 Amer. Math. Monthly 91 32 His research centers on the semantics of programming languages.
1990 Rev. Educ. Res. 60 79 Teachers who focused solely on the syntax and semantics of the BASIC programming language.
2010 C. Wu Pro DLR in .NET 4 i. 22 Practically, using a programming language is more than just knowing the language's syntax and semantics.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1874