Semantics

How to spell semantics

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce semantics

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does semantics mean?

1. nounThe branch of linguistics and logic concerned with the meaning of words, phrases, and symbols.
2. nounPetty argument over the precise meaning of words rather than the substance of an issue.

Semantics in a sentence

• The course covers grammar, phonetics, and semantics.

• Whether you call it a refund or a credit is just semantics.

• Her thesis explores the semantics of legal contracts.

• The managers wasted an hour arguing the semantics of the policy.

Where does semantics come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek sēmantikos, an adjective meaning 'significant' or 'having meaning', which was built on the verb sēmainein, 'to signify' or 'to show by a sign'. That verb in turn rests on the noun sēma, meaning a 'sign' or 'mark', the same root that gives us 'semaphore' and the medical 'symptom'. The French coined sémantique as a technical term for the study of how meaning attaches to words, and English adopted 'semantics' in this scholarly sense around the end of the 1800s. Like other names of disciplines (physics, ethics, linguistics), it carries the plural-looking -ics ending yet usually takes a singular verb. The spelling trap lives in that quiet first vowel, which is an unstressed schwa, so writers must remember it is 'se-' rather than the sound-alike 'sy-' or 'sa-'.

How the word is built

• semant- (from Greek sēmantikos: 'significant', 'signifying')
• -ics (suffix forming names of fields of study)