• What is a meaning?

We explain what a meaning is, how it differs from the meaning and various examples. Also, what is the origin of the word.

The meanings of a term are its meanings accepted by the speakers of a language.

What is a meaning?

With the word meaning we refer to the different meanings that in a idiom can be given to a specific term, depending on their respective contexts of use. Normally, entries are called meanings that a word register in the dictionary, or to the different understandings that are given to the same term in the spoken language.

Speaking colloquially, it is possible to understand meaning as synonymous meaning, but the two terms are not exactly the same. The total meaning of a word is made up of all its meanings, that is, the meaning of a word varies according to each of its possible meanings. This is what happens, for example, with the word "bank", of which we can identify at least three meanings:

• The bench that is in the squares and that is part of the furniture to sit on.
• The bank in which we deposit our money or request loans, the financial institution.
• The conjugation in the first person of the verb "bank", used in Rio de la Plata as a synonym for "endure", "wait" or "support".

Thus, the same word can have multiple meanings in the dictionary, depending on the degree of subtlety between its meanings and associated meanings.

On the other hand, one of the lost meanings of the word meaning (or rather, precisely, one of its old meanings), is that of “acceptance”. The latter comes from its origin etymological, since it comes from the Latin acceptio, action and effect of "accept" or "approve" (formed by ad-, “Towards”, and capere, "Take"), but is currently deprecated.

Anyway, we could understand it as that the meanings of a term are its senses "approved" or "accepted" by the speakers of a idiom.