What does word form mean?
Definitions for word form
word form
This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word word form.
Princeton's WordNet
form, word form, signifier, descriptornoun
the phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something
"the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached"
Wikipedia
word form
In linguistics, morphology () is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and stress, and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning. Morphology differs from morphological typology, which is the classification of languages based on their use of words, and lexicology, which is the study of words and how they make up a language's vocabulary.While words, along with clitics, are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, in most languages, if not all, many words can be related to other words by rules that collectively describe the grammar for that language. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog and dogs are closely related, differentiated only by the plurality morpheme "-s", only found bound to noun phrases. Speakers of English, a fusional language, recognize these relations from their innate knowledge of English's rules of word formation. They infer intuitively that dog is to dogs as cat is to cats; and, in similar fashion, dog is to dog catcher as dish is to dishwasher. By contrast, Classical Chinese has very little morphology, using almost exclusively unbound morphemes ("free" morphemes) and it relies on word order to convey meaning. (Most words in modern Standard Chinese ["Mandarin"], however, are compounds and most roots are bound.) These are understood as grammars that represent the morphology of the language. The rules understood by a speaker reflect specific patterns or regularities in the way words are formed from smaller units in the language they are using, and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation within and across languages and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages. Phonological and orthographic modifications between a base word and its origin may be partial to literacy skills. Studies have indicated that the presence of modification in phonology and orthography makes morphologically complex words harder to understand and that the absence of modification between a base word and its origin makes morphologically complex words easier to understand. Morphologically complex words are easier to comprehend when they include a base word.Polysynthetic languages, such as Chukchi, have words composed of many morphemes. For example, the Chukchi word "təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən", meaning "I have a fierce headache", is composed of eight morphemes t-ə-meyŋ-ə-levt-pəγt-ə-rkən that may be glossed. The morphology of such languages allows for each consonant and vowel to be understood as morphemes, while the grammar of the language indicates the usage and understanding of each morpheme. The discipline that deals specifically with the sound changes occurring within morphemes is morphophonology.
ChatGPT
word form
Word form refers to the specific way a word is spelled, pronounced, or used in grammar. This may include variations of the word due to tense, number, case or degree, such as plurals, past tense forms, comparative forms, etc. For example, 'run', 'running', 'ran' are different forms of the same word. It is also used to denote the shape of a word irrespective of its grammatical form.
Editors Contribution
word form
The formation of a word.
The word form is easy to remember when learning a language.
Submitted by MaryC on January 21, 2021
Matched Categories
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of word form in Chaldean Numerology is: 4
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of word form in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4
Translations for word form
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- شكل الكلمةArabic
- slovní tvarCzech
- word formularDanish
- έντυπο λέξηGreek
- forma de la palabraSpanish
- فرم کلمهPersian
- sous forme de texteFrench
- bentuk kataIndonesian
- modulo parolaItalian
- 단어 형식Korean
- woordvormDutch
- OrdformNorwegian
- Formularul cuvântRomanian
- Форма словаRussian
- ordformSwedish
- வார்த்தை வடிவம்Tamil
- لفظ فارمUrdu
- 词形Chinese
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"word form." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 14 Mar. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/word+form>.
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