plesionym

English

WOTD – 5 October 2018

Etymology

From plesio- (“close, near”) +‎ -onym.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpliːzɪənɪm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpliːzɪəˌnɪm/
• Hyphenation: ple‧sio‧nym

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

plesionym (plural plesionyms)

1. (linguistics) Synonym of parasynonym.
   • 1986, D[avid] A[lan] Cruse, “Synonymy”, in Lexical Semantics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, published 1997, →ISBN, section 12.4 (Congruence Relations and Synonymy), page 290:

     It was suggested in 12.1 that propositional synonyms are 'more synonymous' than plesionyms, which, in turn, are 'more synonymous' than non-synonyms.

   • 2002, Isaac S. Kohane, editor, Bio*medical Informatics: One Discipline: The Annual Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association, November 9–13, 2002 [...] San Antonio, TX: Proceedings, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hanley & Belfus, →ISBN, page 168, column 2:

     An immediate question is when does a plesionym cross a "vertical distance boundary" to become a different concept?

   • 2014, Siobhan Chapman, Billy Clark, editors, Pragmatic Literary Stylistics (Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition), New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →DOI, →ISBN:

     Such a semantic intertextual frame arises when the lexical item 'mist' is linked to its plesionym 'fog' and an intertextual link between two texts containing these lexical items is created.

   • 2015, Louise Mullany, Peter Stockwell, “Lexical Semantics”, in Introducing English Language: A Resource Book for Students (Routledge English Language Introductions), 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, section B (Development: Aspects of English), page 68:

     A word is a plesionym if it is a near-synonym, but substitution of the word does not leave the same truth conditions. For example, it 'It wasn't misty, just foggy', the words 'misty' and 'foggy' are pleisonyms of each other. […] Plesionyms are often used to indicate that the speaker is grappling after precision, but perhaps does not possess the precise vocabulary or technical term for the object in mind.

Derived terms

• plesionymous
• plesionymy

Translations

word that is almost a synonym but which has a slightly different meaning — see near-synonym

Anagrams

• monyplies