Etymologically
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semantic

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 16:34. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /sɪˈmæntɪk/[1]

Etymology

The revised OED takes it as borrowed from Ancient Greek σημαντικός (sēmantikós, “significant”), which in Hellenistic Greek also meant giving signs of the weather,[2] while for Barnhart, Etymonline, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford it is borrowed from French sémantique.[3][4][5][6] The Greek adjective is from σημαντός (sēmantós, “marked”), from σημαίνω (sēmaínō, “to show, signify”), from σῆμα (sêma, “sign, mark”).[2][5][7] Etymonline traces sêma to Proto-Indo-European *dheie- (“to see, look”).[4] In French, sémantique was applied by Michel Bréal to the psychology of language;[4][8] the OED dates the French linguistic sense to 1897 and notes an isolated Middle French form symentique of 1561.[2] The linguistic sense of the English adjective follows semantics.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Relating to divination by the interpretation of signs: 1665, in John Spencer's Discourse of Prodigies, a rare sense that soon died out.[2] The Shorter Oxford and Ayto describe the 17th-century sense as reading the signs of the weather.[6][9]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the word was adopted only briefly in the mid-17th century and did not come into its own as a linguistic term until the end of the 19th.[9] The OED dates the sense "relating to meaning in language" to 1890, in John Earle's English Prose,[2][10] and Barnhart and Etymonline to 1894.[3][4] From 1939 it was used of meaning of any kind,[2] and in the same year, often disparagingly, of a choice of words for euphemistic or tendentious ends, as in a "merely semantic" dispute;[2] Etymonline notes that the word has tended to become loose in application.[4] In computing, semantic has since 1998 described data tagged by meaning so that computers can read it, as in the semantic web.[2]

Timeline

  • 1665 – relating to divination by signs (obsolete).[2]
  • 1890 – relating to meaning in language.[2][10]
  • 1894 – in the linguistic sense, after French sémantique.[3][4]
  • 1939 – relating to meaning of any kind; also, of a choice of words, often disparaging.[2]
  • 1998 – in computing, of data structured by meaning.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Relating to meaning in language: a semantic shift in the word over three centuries.[11][10][2]
  2. Relating to semantics.[11][10]
  3. Relating to the different connotations of words with similar meanings; often disparaging, of a dispute that is only about words.[10][2]
  4. (logic) Concerned with the interpretation of a formal theory.[11]
  5. (computing) Relating to data tagged according to its meaning so that computers can process it.[2]
  6. (obsolete) Relating to signs of the weather, or to divination by signs.[2][6]

Word family

  • semantically
  • nonsemantic
  • semanteme
  • semanticist
  • semantics
  • semasiology
  • sematic
  • seme
  • sememe
  • semiotic
  • semiotics
  • semaphore

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins