What is the term for the study of the meaning of words?

The term for the study of the meaning of words is semantics. In linguistics, semantics examines how words, phrases, sentences, and larger expressions convey meaning and how their parts combine to create interpretation.

The branch specifically focused on individual words is called lexical semantics. It studies relationships such as synonymy, where words have related meanings, antonymy, where meanings contrast, and polysemy, where one word has several connected senses. It also examines ambiguity and how vocabulary is organized into semantic fields.

Semantics is different from syntax, which studies how words are arranged into grammatical structures. It also differs from pragmatics, which investigates how context, speaker intention, and social situation affect what an expression communicates. The sentence “It is cold here,” for example, has a semantic meaning but may pragmatically function as a request to close a window.

The word semantics entered English through French in the late 19th century. Linguistic meaning can also be studied formally with logic, computationally in language technologies, or cognitively through the concepts people use to understand the world.