Words that have a double meaning. Words with a double meaning: definition, usage examples

The number of words in the Russian language is simply amazing: modern vocabulary consists of more than 500 thousand units. Single-valued and multi-valued words enrich it even more. Considering that most words have several meanings, this further expands the verbal horizons of speech.

This article talks about single-valued and polysemantic words, examples of such words are given below. . But first, a little theory.

Definition

Single-valued and polysemantic words are distinguished with respect to how many lexical meanings they have. All words that are independent parts of speech have a lexical meaning.

If you explain in simple words, then this is the meaning that people put into the word. Words can denote objects, personalities, phenomena, processes, signs, and, in general, the entirety of thoughts and thinking.

To remember how to define single-valued and multi-valued words, the rules are not too complicated.

An unambiguous (monosemic) word is a word that has only one lexical meaning. If there are two or more meanings, then such a word is polysemantic (polysemic).

Single words

Basically, words that name people according to different signs (doctor, professor, technologist, relative, widow, nephew, Muscovite), animals (bison, rabbit, crocodile, bullfinch, thrush, whale, dolphin), plants (pine, mountain ash, mint, oats, chamomile, peony, mallow), specific objects (bag, screwdriver, hammer, fence, bell, window sill), days and months (Friday, Sunday, September, December), most relative adjectives (urban, maple, sea, five-story) and numerals (eight, ten, one hundred). Also, the terms are single-valued words (molecule, gravity, cosine, verb, liter, kilometer, photosynthesis, hypotenuse).

Polysemantic words

Since a word can be single-valued and multi-valued, the meaning of the word, respectively, can be one or more. But, as already noted, most words in Russian have several meanings. The ability of a word to have different meanings is called polysemy.

For example, the word "press" has 7 meanings:

Every day we use both single-valued and polysemantic words in our speech, sometimes without even realizing how many meanings a particular word has. The palm for the number of meanings in the Russian language is held by the word "go" (26 meanings).

Relationship between the meanings of a polysemic word (metaphor and metonymy)

As a rule, a polysemantic word has one main meaning, and others are derivatives. The root meaning often comes first in a dictionary entry. For example, the main meaning of the word "head" is "part of the body", and "leader", "mind", "main part", "beginning" are secondary and derivative. But all these meanings, one way or another, are united by one common feature. In this case, such a sign is "the main part of something" (body, enterprise, composition).

Sometimes a word can have several basic meanings. For example, the word "rough" has two original meanings - "brutal" ("rough answer") and "raw" ("rough surface").

Usually, all the meanings of a polysemantic word are interconnected either by similarity (metaphor) or by contiguity (metonymy). Metaphor is the transfer of a name from one object to another. At the heart of metaphorical transfer lies an unnamed similarity, but it exists only in the minds of people. Often the main role here is played by a sign of a similar appearance. For example, the word "branch" has two meanings, the second of which was formed by metaphorical transfer:

Branch of a tree.
A railroad line that deviates from the main track.

Metonymy emphasizes a connection that actually exists. For example, an audience is:

A room for listening to lectures.
lecturers themselves.

Another example of metonymy: cuisine is:

How did polysemy originate?

If we return to the origins of the formation of the lexical composition of speech, then there was no such thing as single-valued and polysemantic words. At the beginning, all lexemes were monosemic (they had only one meaning and named only one concept). But over time, new concepts arose, new objects were created, for the designation of which they did not always invent new words, but selected some of the already existing ones, because they observed similarities between them. This is how polysemy was born.

Polysemy and homonymy

After this article, single-valued and polysemantic words are not difficult to distinguish. But how not to confuse polysemantic words and homonyms (words that are spelled and pronounced the same, but have different meanings)? What is the difference between them? In polysemantic words, all meanings are somehow related to each other, and no connection is observed between homonyms. For example, the meanings of the words "peace" ("calm") and "peace" ("globe") have nothing in common. More examples of homonyms: "bow" ("weapon") and "bow" ("plant"), "mine" ("facial expression") and "mine" ("explosive device"), "bar" (entertainment) and "bar" ("atmospheric pressure unit").

So, if you deepen your knowledge of the different meanings of already known words, this will significantly expand your vocabulary and increase your intellectual level.

What are the words with double meaning?

In Russian, there are words in which a change in stress completely changes their meaning (such words are called homographs). For example, a castle is a fortress of a feudal lord, a castle is a locking device. What other words of the Russian language (nouns, common nouns, singular and nominative) have the same property? It is better not to put stress in the answers (they disappeared for me), but to replace it with a capital letter.

Alex-89

Atlas and atlas

flour and flour

veena (Indian musical instrument) and veena

kirk (Lutheran church) and kirk (building tool)

Organ and Organ

COTTON AND COTTON

time and time

MANAGEMENT AND MANAGEMENT

Iris (plant) and iris (candy variety)

Words with different stress, but the same spelling (if written without stress, which most often happens) constitute a subclass of homographs. Homographs are words with the same spelling but different pronunciations and different meanings.

In Russian, almost all words of each of the pairs of homographs differ in stress. I could only remember one pair of Russian homographs with the same accent: "testa" (r.p. from "testo") and "testa" (r.p. from "test"). But these are not homographs, but rather homographic homoforms, since the other forms of these words are different.

In English, homographs with the same accent are quite possible and quite common. For example. Bow (bow) - bow / bow (weapon); bow (bau) - bow, bow. Row (row) - row; row (rau) - noise / quarrel. Lead (li: d) - lead, lead; lead (led) - lead.

I will not repeat the above words in the already existing answers, and as an addition to them I will write six more pairs of words that change their meaning when the stress changes and at the same time they are singular nouns.

Drive unit- forced delivery to the right place of a person - is very often used in judicial practice;

drive unit- a device for driving a mechanism - used in mechanics.

Smell- the position of the pieces of clothing relative to each other;

smell- the same as the fragrance.

WirePoint- delay in the performance of a task;

wire- diminutive of the word wire.

Dinner- harvest. and if you put the emphasis on the letter "y": Dinner- evening meal.

Crown- the same as the wreath and crown- a resident of the city of Vienna.

The wire- usually metal the wire- from the word conduct, means action

Zolotynka

I want to add to the above: the second name of homographs is graphic homonyms. There are many examples of such words (the same in spelling, but completely changing the meaning when pronounced with a different accent) in the Russian language. Here are just a few of them (I try to choose those that have not yet been used here): smell-smell, information-reduction (accounts, for example), management-management, Iris-iris, time-time (on the skin).

Homographs are found not only in Russian, but also in other European languages. An interesting fact is that, despite the same spelling, they most often have a different etymology: they come from completely different words.

Pro100th

pickax tool - pickaxe - luther. church

Iris flower - iris - sweetie

wire - wire (when you get a catch up)

bucket (clear warm weather) - bucket

leading (management) and leading (action by meaning from the verb lead)

Sabbath and Sabbath

persona grata

I don’t remember a lot of words right away, but I can name some of them, for example:

Atlas - atlas

Proteins - proteins

Whiskey - Whiskey

clubs - clubs

PANTS - PANTS

flour - flour

Wednesday - Wednesday

It's time - it's time

NEWS - NEWS

Words that are spelled the same but differ in pronunciation and have different meaning(meaning) are called in linguistics homographs. This is a Greek term, which we translate as "I write the same way."

Homographs include both words of one part of speech (noun and noun, verb and verb) and words of different parts of speech (noun and adjective).

Examples of homographs:

prop a st - pr about mouth;

St. e deniye - sved e nie;

at naked - ug about linen;

top about m (to go) - to e rhom (to go).

escaped a t - hut e walk;

well a bright (summer) - hot about e (food);

b e reg - ber yo G.

Moreljuba

This is an interesting fact, indeed in Russian there are such words, the spelling of which is not different, but the pronunciation completely changes the meaning of the word.

So, I can give the following examples of such words:

1) flour - flour;

2) abyss - abyss;

3) cotton - cotton;

4) forty - forty;

5) mugs - mugs;

6) crying - crying;

7) soar - soar;

8) Organ (in humans) - organ (instrument).

Marina Grigorievna 111

In general, when I read the question, the first thing that came to mind was the word caress. It is spelled and heard the same way, but has 2 meanings. The first is to give affection to someone, the second is to caress the laundry after washing. But after seeing the description, I can offer this: flour, organ, satin, dinner,

In general, there are few such words that both are nouns im.p. unit Yes, even common nouns.

Juliette

Let's think ... If we take the plural and other parts of speech, then as an example we can cite circles - circles, shelves - shelves, write - write.

And if you take nouns in the singular, then here are examples: Atlas - atlas, cotton - cotton.

Anastasiapiluy

These words are homographs, when they look the same in writing, but because of the stress they have a different meaning.

Soul and soul (no soul)

wake up and wake up

flour and flour

already and already (from the word narrowly)

hell and hell

village and village

What words are there in Russian that have several meanings?

Leila

Homonyms are words that are different in meaning but the same in spelling.
3: Spit - on the girl's head; scythe - a tool for mowing; spit - a long cape in a reservoir or in a watercourse (Curonian Spit).
6: Key - musical sign; key from door; the key is a natural source of water; key - wrench; key - information that allows decrypting a cryptogram or verifying a digital signature; key - hint, cheat sheet, answer to the task.
3: Butterfly - insect; the bow tie; butterfly knife.
2: Onion - plant; bow weapon.
3: Pen - writing (gel, ballpoint, etc.); pen - human hand; handle - doorknob.
4: Brush - a bunch of ropes; wrist; brush - berries (rowan brush); brush - brush (for drawing).
2: Lynx - running (eg horses); lynx is an animal.
4: Troika - horses; triple - mark; troika - the judicial body of the NKVD; threesome - suit.
2: The world is the universe; peace - the absence of war, enmity.
2: Messenger - giving a message, a signal about something; messenger - in the army: private for parcels on business.
3: Beam - part of the structure, a beam resting on something at several points (on walls, abutments); beam - a long ravine; beam and beam are lexical homonyms.
2: Kiwi is a fruit; kiwi is a bird.

Tell me words that have two meanings for example: castle-castle, roads-roads

Slava Solntseva

Words that coincide in spelling, but differ in pronunciation (in Russian most often due to differences in stress), are called homographs (from other Greek ὁμός - “the same” and γράφω - “I write”).
flour - flour
spirits - spirits
go out - go out
guilt - guilt
start - start
smell - smell
healthy - healthy
avoid - avoid
ticks - ticks
entrust - entrust
cotton - cotton
kiss - kiss

Vadim Birsky

braid" (tool) and "braid" (hair);

"lynx" (running) and "lynx" (animal);

"peace" (universe) and "peace" (lack of war, enmity);

"troika" (horses) and "troika" (mark)

Nyuta shket tyn holes

These words in Russian are called homonyms. Such examples are:
Folder (for papers) - folder (father)
Handle (door) - handle (in humans) - handle (ballpoint)
club (smoke) - club (urban)
fly (fly) - fly (treat)
fall asleep (sleep) - fall asleep (with a shovel)
Enough?)))

Lena Sharovarova

the key - with which to open the door and the key - which beats from the ground
a scythe - woven from hair and a scythe - a tool for mowing grass
Onion is a plant and onion is a weapon.
Pen - writing (gel, ballpoint, etc.) and pen - human hand, doorknob.
Brush - a bunch of ropes and a brush - hands, a brush - berries (rowan brush) and a brush - a brush (for drawing).
Lynx - running and lynx - animal.
Three - horses and three - elev

Not uncommon in Russian. Very often, one and the same word can be called and / or characterize completely different objects or phenomena. Such words have one main meaning - the original, literal, and one (or more) - figurative, figurative, metaphorical. The latter usually arises on the basis of some feature, similarity, association.

Examples of polysemantic nouns

Among nouns, you can find a lot of examples of words with a double meaning. Here are just a few of them:

Word	direct meaning	Figurative meaning
Ticket	A plane or train ticket, a theater or cinema ticket.	Examination ticket.
Crest	Combing tool, hairbrush.	The crest of a wave or mountain.
Word	speech unit.	literary genre. For example, "The Tale of Igor's Campaign".
Hand	Part of the body - right hand, left hand.	Position, position of a person - "He is my right hand." "Handwriting", manner of execution, recognizable author's touch - "the hand of a great artist". Physical strength - "heavy hand".
Brush	The hand is the part of the body from the wrist to the fingertips.	Paint tool.
Work	Physical labor, effort, human occupation.	The visible result of physical labor is "Good job!".
Sheet	A leaf growing on a tree.	Sheet of paper, notebook or landscape sheet.
Root	Tree root. The part of the tree that is underground.	The mathematical root of a number. For example, the root of 4 is 2. The cause of some phenomenon or event is the "root of evil", "the root of problems".
Duty	A sum of money or material value promised by one person to another, the result of borrowing.	A moral desire for something, a moral duty.

This is not the whole list. It is probably simply impossible to compose everything, because there are almost as many words with a double meaning in Russian as there are single-valued ones.

Examples of polysemous adjectives

Different objects in one word can not only be called, but also characterized. Here are some examples of such words:

Word	direct meaning	Figurative meaning
Steel	Made from steel. For example, a steel knife.	Very strong, unshakable - "nerves of steel".
Gold	Made of gold - "gold earrings", "golden necklace".	Very valuable, kind, with outstanding moral qualities - "golden man", "golden child", "golden heart".
Heavy	Taking a large amount of physical effort - "hard work".	About something that is difficult for others to endure - a "heavy person", a "heavy character".
White	White - "white snow", "white sheet".	A poem without rhyme is "blank verse".
Black	Black color - "black eyes", "black marker".	Angry, sarcastic, touching on sensitive topics in a rude way - "black humor", "black comedy".

Again, the list is incomplete. In addition, the list of words with a double meaning can include adjectives that simultaneously describe colors, smells and / or tastes: orange, raspberry, lemon, plum, and so on.

Examples of polysemantic verbs

Action words can also have more than one meaning:

Word	direct meaning	Figurative meaning
sit down	Sit on a chair, in an armchair, on a horse.	Get on the train (not literally sit on the roof of the train, but figuratively - take your place in it).
Get off / get off	You can get off the train, get off at the desired stop, go to the store.	"Go crazy/go crazy"
Beat	Strike.	"The spring is a fountain", "life is in full swing."
Cut	Separate into pieces with a knife or other sharp blade.	Cause an unpleasant sensation - "light hurts the eyes", "sound hurts the ear".

Most often, words with a double meaning are native Russian words. Borrowed terms usually have the same meaning.

Differences from homonyms

It is very important to distinguish words with a double meaning from homonyms: different words that are spelled the same. Polysemantic words have a direct, basic meaning, and transferred on some basis. Homonyms have independent meanings. "handle" (door) and "handle" (writing) are homonyms, since there is no connection between them. But the word "satellite" is ambiguous - the celestial body was called "satellite" because it moves around the planet, like a human satellite.

My dear friends, today's topic will be a continuation of our conversation about what we are talking about. I didn’t plan to continue this topic, but one day, when I went to the site “Folk Knowledge from Anatoly Kravchenko”, I noticed how one blogger wrote the phrase in the comments: “Wow”, to which Anatoly replied: “If you want to be provided man, never say that. Say what you wrote separately. The blogger understood what Anatoly meant and thanked him for the remark.

I think you understand the meaning of the remark - the expression "Wow" has a double meaning. On the one hand - admiration, surprise, delight, and on the other hand - we program ourselves so that we never get anything.

So I thought, how many such words and phrases exist that have two sides. One of them is on the surface and has a meaning, natural to us, and the second, invisible, until it is good to look closely and listen.

This article contains words with a double meaning, you need to be extremely careful with them. After all, words with a double meaning carry a completely predictable situation that may happen in the future.

Why then program, what we do not want, constantly repeating unnecessary words and phrases. It is much easier to replace them or modify them so as not to harm yourself.

In any case, believe it or not, it never hurts to train yourself to speak only good words.

Words with double meaning

Words and our health

Here I will list all the words and phrases I have found that may well affect our health if we do not stop in time.

Story #1

I read this story a long time ago in a magazine.

The little boy was fooling around at home, and his mother could not calm him down. “Get ready to walk outside so that my eyes do not see you,” she said to the boy with anger. He quietly dressed and went outside. A river flowed not far from the house, and since it was winter, it froze over, and the boy decided to ride on the ice. He joyfully shuffled his feet along the frozen river, not noticing the hole in front of him, which was slightly covered with a thin layer of ice. One more step, and the boy went under the ice. The fur coat and felt boots quickly got wet and pulled him to the bottom. The fishermen saw what happened and managed to pull the boy out of the water, call an ambulance and take him to the hospital.

Only in the hospital corridor, waiting for the doctor, did my mother realize what had caused this situation. The boy was saved, and my mother never said those terrible words again: "My eyes would not see you."

Words and our life

Now let's talk about words that can negatively affect our life in general or in some of its areas. Again, I emphasize that they can. It is not given to us to know which words are realized in life and which are not. Do you want to check it out? I think no. Well then, don't risk it and get rid of these words. Not all of them have a double meaning, but very often we say them jokingly, without even thinking that the world will take them seriously. And then what?

Old age is not joy
My life is a tin, but let it go to the swamp
I'm doing terribly
dog life
Trouble has come - open the gate
Trouble alone does not go
I will never be able to
Things are like white soot
I just don't want to live
When we pay off debts
We can't afford it
We can't afford it
Wow
I don’t seem to have anything - read the word like separately
Get out of my life
I would like your problems

Story #2

The expression “Old age is not joy” I have heard more than once from many of my friends, as a joke. What can I say, she herself had sinned with this earlier, when, after a long work on the plot, it was difficult to straighten up or walk, because her legs hurt out of habit. I joked and everyone laughed together.

But one day I had an epiphany. “This is cool, I program my old age,” I thought, and came up with another phrase, which I replaced this stupid expression with. And it sounds like this: “Old age is joy and cheerfulness.”

Story #3

For some time, the family was still repaying debts, while the words about the debt were taboo. Today, their financial situation has improved and continues to grow.

Avoid the word with the prefix "demon"

When I was preparing this article, I stumbled upon interesting information that caused me a double-valued feeling. This topic is not for persuasion, but rather for discussion. So say what you think about this.

And the information was as follows. Words with the prefix "demon" never existed in nature until 1921, but they appeared starting from that year. Before that, there was only the prefix "without". This is confirmed by the explanatory dictionary of V. Dahl.

All words like “free”, “useless”, “powerless”, “priceless”, “selfless”, “purposeless”, “inglorious” and so on, are recommended to be replaced with other words that carry one single meaning: “without money ”, “not needed”, “weak”, “there is simply no price”, “everything is done just like that”, “no goal”, “shameful”. Personally, it’s somehow scary for me to pronounce words with the prefix “demon” separately, a different meaning opens up in them.

The spelling rules for these words are clear from school, but what we actually hear when we pronounce them is the question.

The topic I have today turned out to be a debatable one, pushing for reflection - is everything so unambiguous in our life. How much we still need to know and comprehend, understand and understand. I wish you all, and myself too, success in this difficult task.

Special thanks to Andrey Kravchenko, for giving me a topic for this post without realizing it.

I wish everyone happiness, Natalya Murga

23 comments from readers of the article "Words with double meaning"

Words with a double meaning spoil life for many, so before you say a word, you need to think about how to pronounce it correctly so that in the future you don’t bring trouble on your family. What you say out loud is what you get.

The Russian language is rich and colorful in its expressions.
There is no doubt that every word carries a great power, which we have no idea about. But if he treats every phrase he says so strictly, will our Russian peculiarity not be lost? Well, what phrase to say when angry at a loved one? 🙂
So everything in moderation!
But the phrase “Wow” (my favorite when expressing admiration) I will completely refuse 🙂 Thank you for the interesting information.

Otherwise, this phenomenon (polysemy of words) is called: double meaning or pun. Take a look at the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language: a rare word has only one meaning, usually two or three, or even five or six. For example, the word "Word" has 8 meanings. And the word “Stone” is both a piece of hard rock, and a “stone on the heart”, and a “stumbling block”, and a stone on the neck, and a stone in the liver ...
Words that are different in meaning but have the same sound and spelling are called homonyms. For example: "The postmen delivered the mail." Either they destroyed the post office, or they carried the mail messages home. A huge number of jokes and anecdotes are built on the principle of polysemy of words. Get children dictionaries of synonyms and homonyms. Offer to make jokes out of polysemantic words.
A somewhat different matter is the “figurative meaning of the word”, allegory, hidden meaning, “double bottom”, the replacement of the direct meaning with the figurative one - this is a secondary derivative meaning of the word that arose on the basis of various types of associative connections, through metonymy, metaphor and other semantic changes. Metonymy (literally: renaming) is the replacement of one word with another based on the connection of their meanings by contiguity (“the theater applauded” instead of “the audience applauded”, “the lake sleeps”).
There are wonderful masters of word creation. When my daughter Yuta entered the biological faculty of St. Petersburg University, my friend, a wonderful person, an archivist of the Academy of Sciences, a wit and a word-creator, congratulated me on the “utization” of the biological faculty.

Evolution: from the heyday of stagnation to the stagnation of prosperity.

Our director allowed to criticize him as you like, but as he pleases, he did not say.

Grandfather planted a turnip.
And Repka got out of prison and killed grandfather.

Defendant:
- And now I will refer to this witness.
- What am I to you, Sakhalin, or what? the witness interrupted sternly.
(Earlier, Sakhalin Island was a place of exile.)

Doctors fought for the soldier's life for a long time, but he survived.

It was raining and two students: one with an umbrella, the other - to the university.

A popular method of folk pedagogy, which claims to be universal, is to teach through the "lower hemispheres of the brain."

He also had a co-author - he wrote with sin in half (sin - co-author).
For a "skillful hand" it is enough to change one letter in a word and a new, deadly, satirical meaning will appear. So, Pushkin paraphrased the motto on the coat of arms of Arakcheev: “Without flattery betrayed” to “Betrayed with flattery”.

Once, Averchenko offered a competition for the most stupid anecdote for the staff of the Satyricon magazine for the New Year. The competition was held under mottos so that it was impossible to determine who suggested which joke. Averchenko himself won the competition with the following anecdote: “A boy ran home and shouted: “Dad, dad, our Solomon got into a straw cutter!” To which dad replied: “Now this is no longer a straw cutter, but a straw cutter!”.

The hunter looked forward to meeting the hunt, and the mosquitoes looked forward to meeting the hunter.
The hunter also knows the joy of discovery - the discovery of the hunting season.
Nothing discourages hunting like the absence of game.
The patient needs medical attention. The further they go, the better.

Once a high school student came to school in an ultra-short skirt. The old teacher said:
- Previously, skirts were worn to the floor, and now to the signs of the floor.