Fwd: "meronym" - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

"She had heard all about excluded middles; they were bad shit; to be
avoided." (Lot 49, p. 136)

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Subject: "meronym" - Word of the Day from the OED
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OED Online Word of the Day
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meronym, n.

DRAFT ENTRY Mar. 2008

Brit. /mrnm/, U.S. /mrnm/  [< MERO- comb. form1 + -ONYM comb. form.]

    1. A word denoting the mid point of two extremes. rare.

1970 J. T. SHIPLEY Dict. World Lit. Terms (new ed.) 196/2 Meronym, a
term midway of polarity, the mean between two extremes, as convex,
flat, concave; theism, agnosticism, atheism.

    2. Linguistics. A word denoting an object which forms part of
another object. Cf. MERONYMY n.

1986 D. A. CRUSE Lexical Semantics vii. 160 X is a meronym of Y if and
only if sentences of the form A Y has Xs/an X and An X is a part of a
Y are normal when the noun phrase an X, a Y are interpreted
generically. 1988 Language & Cognitive Processes 3 27 Most of the
meronym relations are clustered in the right-hand two-thirds of the
figure. 1994 Guardian 10 Nov. (Online Suppl.) 5/4 WordNet..also
includes meronyms (components, as handle is to cup), holonyms [etc.].
1997 P. H. MATTHEWS Conc. Oxf. Dict. Linguistics at Meronymy, Sleeve
is a meronym of coat, dress, or blouse.

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