Meaningful words examples. Rule of ambiguous words

The whole world of people, animals, plants, natural phenomena, cities, countries, objects around us, events, our actions, mood - everything is named, everything has its own name or name. You can easily understand a word if you know its meaning. Meaning is what the word means. If you don’t know the meaning of a word, you can find it out from adults or with the help of an explanatory dictionary. But sometimes in life you can observe such a situation. The teacher asked Vanya what his favorite subjects were. Vanya answered that a computer, a ball and a bicycle. Do you think Vanya answered correctly? What subjects did the teacher ask Vanya about? About school subjects. Why did such confusion occur? The thing is that many words in the Russian language can have several meanings. During the lesson we will get acquainted with polysemantic words and find out in which dictionary we can find their meanings.

Complete the task. Find out the word by its lexical meaning. Connect with an arrow.

Test yourself.

Now look at the pictures and name the parts that the arrow points to (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Leg - a polysemantic word ()

What did you notice? The pictures are different, the objects are different, but the word is the same. The word “leg” is written everywhere. Why?

It turns out that one word can have not one, but several meanings at once. This is one of the features of our Russian language. If a word has only one lexical meaning, it is called unambiguous; if it has two or more meanings, it is called polysemous. In our language there are many more polysemantic words than single-valued ones. But all the meanings of polysemantic words are related in meaning and have something in common.

How many meanings of the word “leg” did the drawings tell you? Let's list it.

1. An affectionate name for the lower limb of a person, the leg.
2. The stalk on which the flower or the lower part of the mushroom under the cap is held.
3. Furniture support.
4. One of the sliding parts of the measuring device, for example a compass.

Let's conclude: the word “leg” has multiple meanings.

Complete the task. Divide the words into two columns: the first is single-valued words, the second is polysemantic.

Ice, leaf, tail, jump rope, pine, kangaroo, mathematics, line, butterfly, guitar, lightning, bread.

Test yourself.

Single meaning words: ice, skipping rope, pine, kangaroo, mathematics, guitar.

Multiple meaning words: a piece of paper (of paper and wood), a tail (of an animal, an airplane, a line), a line (of the horizon, a line on paper, a railway or an air line), a butterfly (an insect and a tie), a zipper (a fastener and a discharge in the air), bread (this is a product that we eat, and the grain planted in the field)

How not to make a mistake and accurately determine whether a word is ambiguous or unambiguous? An explanatory dictionary will help. To find out how many meanings a word has, you need to look up the word alphabetically in an explanatory dictionary. If the dictionary entry contains the numbers 1, 2, and maybe more, and each number is given an interpretation, then the word is ambiguous.

Listen to the tale of Gennady Tsyferov. Count how many meanings for the word “star” were given by the heroes of the fairy tale, the grasshopper and the little frog.

- What are stars? - the grasshopper once asked.
The little frog thought and said:
- Big elephants say: “The stars are golden carnations, they nail the sky.” But don’t believe it. Big bears think: “The stars are snowflakes that forgot to fall.” But you don’t believe them either. Listen to me better. It seems to me that the big rain is to blame. After a lot of rain, big flowers grow. And it also seems to me when they reach with their heads sky, then they fall asleep there, tucking their long legs.
“Yes,” said the grasshopper. “This is more like the truth. Stars are big flowers. They sleep in the sky with their long legs tucked in.”

How many meanings of the word “star” did the grasshopper and the frog give? No one. They could not explain the meaning of this word. Can you? What stars are we talking about? About stars - celestial bodies.

What else can you imagine when you hear the word “star”? What did you present? Let's see what meanings of the word “star” are indicated in the explanatory dictionary. Read the dictionary entry for the word STAR. How many values ​​do you see?

1. A celestial body visible in the night sky. Polaris (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Star in the sky

2. About a famous person. Ballet star (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Ballet star

3. Geometric figure with pointed protrusions. Kremlin star. An order having this form (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Geometric figure

4. A light spot on the animal’s forehead (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. A star on the animal’s forehead

5. Starfish (Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Starfish ()

Conclusion: star is a polysemantic word.

How do meanings appear for the same words? People learned to observe the stars in the sky in ancient times. And the geometric figure, starfish, the order was named so for its similarity in shape. Why are famous people called stars? For talent, brightness, brilliant work.

Did you know that in Ancient Rome the concept of “set”, i.e. there is a lot of something, was denoted by the word “globe”. After all, there was a time when people did not suspect that the globe was round. The ball was generally called a globe in Latin. This name for the ball came in handy when they began to make a model of the globe - a round globe.

This is how words - names of objects - could come into our language. In modern language, the word “globe” has only one meaning - it is a model of the globe, but the word “ball” has many meanings: it is an object, for example, a billiard ball or a hot air balloon, and in mathematics there is a ball, and we talk about our planet “ Earth".

It turns out that words denoting objects are very often polysemantic words. Let's find out: can words-signs and words-actions of our Russian language be polysemantic?

Complete the task. Make up phrases with each word in brackets and imagine what they are talking about.

Test yourself.

Cold tea, cold house, cold wind, cold sweater, cold color.

A deaf old man, a deaf shot, a deaf alley, a deaf forest, a deaf voice.

Keep the ring, keep the memory, keep the good name.

Take a stick, take the city, take something with you, take it to the right.

Conclusion: different words in the Russian language can be polysemantic: words denoting objects, words-actions, and words-attributes.

Polysemous words can have two, three, or more meanings. For example, the word “take” has as many as 14 meanings in the dictionary, and the word “go” has 26. Of course, not all the meanings are clear to you now, but try to find out what is unfamiliar and incomprehensible and remember it, and explanatory dictionaries will help you. Knowing the different meanings of words will make your speech interesting and beautiful.

Today in class we learned that many words in the Russian language can have several meanings, we got acquainted with polysemantic words, and determined in which dictionary their meanings can be found.

Bibliography

1. Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. - M.: Astrel, 2011. (download link)
2. Buneev R.N., Buneeva E.V., Pronina O.V. Russian language 1. - M.: Ballas. (Download link )
3. Agarkova N.G., Agarkov Yu.A. Textbook for teaching literacy and reading: ABC. Academic book/textbook.

1. Nsportal.ru ().
2. Festival.1september.ru ().
3. Chernova.moy.su ().

Homework

1. Tell your friends what you learned about the topic of the lesson.

2. Read the poem by A. Shibaev. Find a polysemantic word in it and explain its meaning.

And the sun is playing

(Rays on the river),

And the cat plays

(in a ball on the porch),

And Zhenya plays

(Zhenya has a doll)

And mom plays

(In the theater on stage)

And dad plays

(On a copper pipe)

And grandfather (playing with his grandson in the hut).

3. Make up phrases with the ambiguous word STRONG.

Fabric, sleep, hands, blow, coffee, nut, knot, health.

4. Identify a polysemantic word by its lexical meaning.

1st meaning - training session.

2nd value - the task that is given to the student.

5. Come up with sentences with different meanings of the word BONE.

1st meaning - a bump on the body of a person or animal from a bruise.

2nd meaning - pine, spruce, cedar cones.

6. Guess which ambiguous word fits the meaning of the sentence.

Outside the window…. wind. On the street... a fire truck siren. In the forest... a wolf.

The number of words in the Russian language is simply amazing: modern vocabulary consists of more than 500 thousand units. Single-valued and polysemantic words enrich it even more. If we consider that most words have several meanings, this further expands the verbal horizons of speech.

This article talks about single-valued and polysemous words, examples of such words are given below . But first, a little theory.

Definition

Single-valued and polysemous words are distinguished according to how many lexical meanings they have. All words that are independent parts of speech have lexical meaning.

To explain it in simple words, this is the meaning that people put into the word. Words can denote objects, personalities, phenomena, processes, signs and, in general, the entirety of thoughts and thinking.

To remember how to define single and ambiguous words, the rules are not too complicated.

A word that has only one lexical meaning is called unambiguous (monosemic). If there are two or more meanings, then such a word is polysemic (polysemic).

Single meaning words

Basically, words that name people according to different characteristics (doctor, professor, technologist, relative, widow, nephew, Muscovite), animals (bison, rabbit, crocodile, bullfinch, thrush, whale, dolphin), plants (pine, rowan, mint, oats, chamomile, peony, mallow), specific objects (bag, screwdriver, hammer, fence, bell, window sill), days and months (Friday, Sunday, September, December), most relative adjectives (urban, maple, sea, five-story) and numerals (eight, ten, one hundred). Also, the terms are unambiguous words (molecule, gravity, cosine, verb, liter, kilometer, photosynthesis, hypotenuse).

Ambiguous words

Since a word can be unambiguous and polysemantic, the meaning of the word, accordingly, can be one or several. But, as already noted, most words in Russian have several meanings. The ability of a word to have different meanings is called polysemy.

For example, the word “press” has 7 meanings:

Every day we use both single-meaning and ambiguous words in our speech, sometimes without even realizing how many meanings a particular word has. The word “go” (26 meanings) holds the palm in terms of the number of meanings in the Russian language.

The connection between the meanings of a polysemic word (metaphor and metonymy)

As a rule, a polysemantic word has one main meaning, and the others are derivatives. The main meaning often appears first in a dictionary entry. For example, the main meaning of the word “head” is “part of the body”, and “leader”, “mind”, “main part”, “beginning” are secondary and derivative. But all these meanings, one way or another, are united by one common feature. In this case, such a sign is “the main part of something” (body, enterprise, composition).

Sometimes a word can have several basic meanings. For example, the word "rough" has two original meanings - "brutal" ("rough response") and "raw" ("rough surface").

Typically, all meanings of a polysemantic word are related to each other either by similarity (metaphor) or by contiguity (metonymy). Metaphor is the transfer of a name from one object to another. The basis of metaphorical transfer is an unnamed similarity, but it exists only in the minds of people. Often the main role here is played by a sign of similar appearance. For example, the word “branch” has two meanings, the second of which was formed through metaphorical transfer:

1. Tree shoot.
2. A railway line that runs away from the main track.

Metonymy emphasizes the connection that actually exists. For example, the audience is:

1. A room intended for listening to lectures.
2. The lecturers themselves.

Another example of metonymy: kitchen is:

How did polysemy arise?

If we return to the origins of the formation of the lexical composition of speech, then then there was no such thing as single-valued and polysemantic words. At the beginning, all lexemes were monosemic (they had only one meaning and named only one concept). But over time, new concepts arose, new objects were created, for which they did not always come up with new words, but selected some from among the existing ones, because they observed similarities between them. This is how polysemy appeared.

Polysemy and homonymy

After this article, it is not difficult to distinguish between unambiguous and ambiguous words. But how not to confuse polysemantic words and homonyms (words that are written and pronounced the same, but have different meanings)? What is the difference between them? For polysemantic words, all meanings are connected in one way or another, but no connection is observed between homonyms. For example, the meanings of the words "peace" ("tranquility") and "peace" ("globe") have nothing in common. Other examples of homonyms: “onion” (“weapon”) and “onion” (“plant”), “mine” (“facial expression”) and “mine” (“explosive device”), “bar” (entertainment establishment) and "bar" ("unit of atmospheric pressure").

So, if you deepen your knowledge of the different meanings of already known words, this will significantly expand your vocabulary and increase your intellectual level.

The Russian language is rich in polysemantic words. For students studying Russian, this may seem like an additional challenge. How, for example, can you remember several dozen lexical meanings of the word “go”? But, on the other hand, knowing several polysemantic words - semantic champions, you significantly expand your language capabilities and can use this word in different situations. In colloquial speech, people rarely try to find an extra synonym. Living speech strives for speed and simplification, so polysemantic words always come in handy.

Words with a single meaning in Russian mainly belong to groups such as the names of plants, animals, and professions. General vocabulary most often has more than one meaning. The polysemy of a word is a historical phenomenon. As a rule, the older the word, the more likely it is to “acquire” new, acquired meanings. Some of them become outdated and disappear from everyday use, but are still found in literary texts.

For example, the word “life” has more than ten quite active meanings. Let's look at some of them.

Life is:
- form of existence of matter.
No one knows exactly when life began on Earth.

- the state of the body from birth to death.
The life of a night moth compared to a human is a moment.

- the lifespan of someone or something
The lifespan of modern technology has increased significantly.

- the totality of everything that a person has done and experienced.
Human life is an incredibly long journey, in which there is a place for both joy and sorrow.

- biography
Robinson's life was full of adventures.

- reality (as opposed to fantasy)
In my life I would never dare to get behind the wheel of a racing car.

And life is also:
- a way to spend time
- energy
- Living being...
and so on.

Any part of speech can have multiple meanings. For example, the verb “beat” is one of the most polysemantic words in the Russian language. Here are some of its meanings:

Hit (to exert physical force on something, someone)
Boxer hits a punching bag*

Permeate
The rays penetrated through the stained glass, painting** the floor with colored reflections

Win
The future chess champion beat his father at the age of four, checkmating him in the fifth minute of the game.

Fire
My brother's hobby is hitting cymbals with a gun

Impact with force
Grandfather had been suffering from severe chills for 24 hours

Measure blows
The clock strikes midnight

Signal
The bell rings in the main square

Please note that the words in the sentences were not specially selected, but even among them there were ambiguous ones:

* “pear” in this case is also used not in the most popular meaning (fruit), but in the meaning of a sports equipment
** “to paint” is a very figurative verb that has several meanings
*** the verb “put” is also very ambiguous

You can find out all the variety of polysemantic words in the Russian language in explanatory dictionaries.

In this article you will learn what it is unambiguous And ambiguous words(I will pay special attention to the polysemy of words and how it is implemented in vocabulary).

There are words in the Russian language that have only one lexical meaning, so they are called unambiguous, for example: PIlot - a specialist who controls an aircraft; CHARITY - willingness to help someone or forgive someone out of compassion; UPCOMING - future, one that will come soon, will happen, etc.

A word can have several meanings, in which case it is called ambiguous, For example:

CLOUD:

1 - accumulation of condensed water vapor in the atmosphere ( Spindrift clouds. The sun went behind the cloud);

2 - a continuous mass of small volatile particles of something ( Light cloud of smoke);

FRESH:

1 - recently mined or prepared, not yet spoiled ( Fresh bread. Fresh roses);

2 - eaten in its natural form, not canned, not salted, etc. ( Fresh tomatoes);

3 - cool and clean ( Fresh air);

4 - cold ( Fresh breeze);

5 - not lost brightness ( Fresh paints, sketches);

6 - unused, clean ( Fresh sheet);

7 - recently emerged ( Latest news).

In polysemantic words, one of the meanings is direct (primary) - this is its main meaning, and the other is figurative (secondary), which arises on the basis of the direct and is connected with it in meaning, i.e. motivated by direct meaning.

Polysemy, i.e. transfer of a name from one concept to another is possible because objects and phenomena in the world around us have either similar characteristics, common properties, or exist in close contact, determining the existence of each other. In this regard, there are several types of name transfer.

Metaphorical transfer of name is based on the similarity of external characteristics (shape, color, taste, purpose, etc.), for example: The water is boiling behind the stern of the ship. Word boils in this case it is used in a figurative meaning, the transfer is carried out on the basis of the representation of seething water at a boil and seething water from the movement of a ship. The direct meaning of the word boil - bubble, foam from steam bubbles formed during strong heating.

The same transfer method is used in the following examples: wing (birds): direct meaning “organ of movement through the air in birds and insects”; figurative meanings : wing (of an airplane): general features - form and purpose; wing (of building): general features - location; wings (nose)- shape and location.

Transfer can be carried out on the basis of adjacent location (metonymy). For example, in words plate, glass , in combinations eat a plate, drink a glass This does not mean the objects themselves, but their contents.

The transfer is carried out according to a characteristic detail of an object, a person, for example: - Look what kind of hat is walking down the street (= a person wearing an unusual hat); Who did you line up behind? - Over there for that red handbag (behind the owner of the red handbag).

As you can see, the direct and figurative meaning of a word necessarily differ in its verbal environment - in a phrase or sentence.

The ability of a word to be used figuratively is widely used by poets and writers as a means of creating figurativeness. For example, in the poem “The Bronze Horseman” two important words with a figurative meaning are used - “cut through” and “flags” - and there is so much content behind them:

“Nature destined us here

To Europe cut through window"

Open a window to Europe- get connections with the founding of St. Petersburg and access to the sea;

“Here on new waves

All flags will be visiting us"

Flags- these are ships, and therefore foreign merchants.

The role of polysemantic words as a means of figurativeness is a fairly common phenomenon in various types and genres of literature. This is one of the features of the vocabulary of the Russian language, indicating its richest capabilities.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The richness of the Russian language lies not only in numerous rules and a large number of words.

Most of them also have several meanings, which for the uninitiated person will create some confusion. They are called ambiguous words.

Definition - what is it?

Polysemous words are words that have at least two lexical meanings. Wherein they are similar according to some parameters, for example, appearance or functionality. And you can understand what exactly is being said only from the context of the entire phrase.

For example, take the word BUTTON. If you ask several people what it means, you may get completely different answers.

So, one person will say that we are talking about a pushpin, with the help of which paper is attached to the board. Another will remember that this is an option for fittings on clothes that help to fasten. And finally, the third will decide that he is being asked about a doorbell button or one that the military can use to launch missiles. And everyone will be right!

Here are some more examples of the most popular ambiguous words:

1. LEG – a table or chair, a mushroom or a flower, a compass, an affectionate name for a person’s leg;
2. HAT - a woman's headdress, again with a mushroom, a nail;
3. TAIL – animal, plane, train, queue;
4. FEATHER – the handle or plumage of a bird;
5. SLEEVE - a piece of clothing, a branch of a river, a pipe for discharging gas or liquid (firefighter).

Available in Russian and real record holders among polysemantic words. For example, the word EARTH has about 10 different meanings (planet, soil, territory, synonym for land, element, etc.). But the verbs TAKE (14) and GO (26) have even more.

Difference between polysemous words and homonyms

These two concepts are easy to confuse in Russian. Both mean words that are similar in spelling and pronunciation, but at the same time completely different things are hidden under them. But there is a fundamental difference.

Polysemantic words have a common feature, which may consist in external or functional similarity. A, meaning completely different things that do not have a single similar feature.

Let's take the same words:

Here are examples of homonyms:

1. SPIT - this word means an agricultural tool, a woman's hairstyle or the edge of the shore;
2. KEY - it can be used to open locks, it is the name of a plumber's instrument, there is a treble clef in music and, finally, it is also a synonym for a spring.

As you can see, homonyms can have several different meanings, but at the same time they have nothing in common together.

Examples of polysemous words

Polysemantic words can refer to any part of speech– nouns, adjectives, verbs.

Polysemous nouns:

1. COMB – cockscomb, mountain top, comb (there are similarities in appearance);
2. BRUSH - an artist's tool, part of a hand, the completion of a shawl, rowan fruits (again, if you turn on your imagination, you will find an external resemblance);
3. NEEDLE – pine or spruce, part of a syringe, hedgehog “clothing”, sewing tool (obvious external similarity - all objects are thin, long and sharp).

1. DEEP – feeling or lake (both words imply something big);
2. SOFT – voice, carpet, character, light, clay (something light and pleasant);
3. HEAVY – period, suitcase, character (poorly tolerated, full of problems);
4. IRON – will, grid, discipline (does not give in and does not break).

Polysemous verbs:

1. BORN - daughter, idea, thought (born, formed);
2. COLLECT – harvest, thoughts, evidence, things (put into a single whole);
3. CLAT – with the door, on the back, with your hands (hitting one against the other);
4. Score - a nail or a goal (to achieve the final result).

Polysemantic words in literal and figurative senses

Most polysemantic words appeared as a result of transferring the qualities of one word to another.

That is, the first is used in the literal sense, and all the rest - figuratively.

1. THE LIGHT GOES OUT – THE STAR GOES OUT (the star does not go out, it simply becomes invisible);
2. A man DOZES - a reed DOZES (the plant simply does not move);
3. KEEP money – KEEP memory (keep something valuable);
4. STAR in the sky - STAR on the stage (shines brightly);
5. DEAF old man - DEEP alley (not a sound can be heard);
6. Blue SEA – SEA of light, SEA of words (something huge);
7. The boy's FATHER is the FATHER of computer science (who gave life, stood at the origins).

Similar techniques can often be found in literature, especially in children's literature. With the help of ambiguous words, the authors compose very interesting riddles. Here, for example, is how Samuel Marshak describes rain:

He makes noise in the field and in the garden,
But it won’t get into the house,
And I'm not going anywhere,
As long as he GOES.

By the way, we have already said that the word GO is one of the record holders for polysemy.

A person can walk, it can rain, hours go by, time goes by, a movie goes on, work also goes on (as in the proverb, when a soldier sleeps), they say about some thing that it suits a person very well, and much more.

Single and polysemous words

Of course, not all words in Russian have two or more meanings. There is a whole a series of unambiguous words, which are used only in one meaning and it is simply impossible to interpret them differently.

For example, unambiguous ones include:

1. Proper names – Volga, Kazbek, Russia;
2. Various terms - suffix, logarithm, gastritis;
3. New words () – pizzeria, smartphone, briefing;
4. Words with a narrow meaning - trolleybus, kayak, medal.

Of course, these are not all examples. The point is that unambiguous words in Russian a little more than polysemantic ones, but this is simply because many words have lost their other meanings over time.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

You might be interested

Nezachto or not for anything - how to spell correctly Homonyms are similar words with different meanings (types and examples of homonyms) Abbreviation - what is it, its types and rules of use What are paronyms - example sentences from the paronym dictionary Prepositions are small particles of a big language Aspect - use in colloquial speech and scientific interpretation Phraseologisms are examples of catchphrases in the Russian language Difference between “campaign” and “company” - how to write correctly What are antonyms and examples of enriching the Russian language with them Trivial and non-trivial - what is it (meaning of words) What is metamorphosis and how does it differ from metamorphosis?