Any of the sequences of one or more sounds or morphemes (intuitively recognized by native speakers… With reference to the spoken form primarily or…

A word. Obsolete.

Originally: that which a person or thing is called; a designation, a name. Later more generally: an item of vocabulary, a lexical item, a word (in…

Applied to a single word. Now rare.

literary. A significant tone or sound, esp. in speech; a spoken word. †Also in plural: a language, speech (obsolete).

A word. (Usually in plural). Thieves' cant.

A vocable; a word. Obsolete.

A word; (also) a comment, opinion. Cf. motty, n.2 2. Now chiefly English regional (Lancashire).

= accent, n. 4b.

A word; a sound.

A word (regardless of part of speech). Obsolete. rare.

A verbal expression or phrase; a word.

In extended use. Any sequence of letters considered as a discrete unit.

With the, in predicative use. In the negative, by litotes: to be an utterly inadequate word (to describe the present case).

Uses relating to dicky bird, n. colloquial. A word; = dicky bird, n. 3.

any item in the vocabulary of a language; a lexical item (see lexical, adj. compounds 1), a word.

a kind of lexical unit, as a word or group of cognate words (see quots.).

slang and colloquial. A word. Chiefly in negative constructions with the sense ‘any or the least utterance; anything at all’, such as not a dicky bird…

Linguistics. A word forming a distinct item in a vocabulary; a lexeme. Also: a word considered as a type (type, n. 8e).

In stratificational grammar, an element of lexicon, one or more of which combined may constitute a lexeme. Cf. morphon, n.2, phonon, n., semon, n.