Types of meaning

A. Basic meaning: when you look up a word, the main thing that you want to know is its basic meaning. For ex, in ‘She has fair hair, the word fair= light, opposite of dark or in It’s time to wind up the discussion now, the words wind up= end’.

However, there are lot of other aspects of meaning that it is important to be aware of, particularly when you are studying in more advanced level of English.

B. Polysemy or multiple meanings: A great many words in English have more than one meaning. Look at fair and wind up and their different meanings in these examples:

1. That wasn’t a very fair thing to say (adjective: just)

2. The handsome knight fell in love with the fair maiden (adjective: beautiful)

3. His knowledge of French is fair (adjective: neither very bad nor very good)

4. She has a fair chance of winning the prize (adjective: reasonable)

5. Fair weather is forecast for tomorrow (adjective: dry and pleasant)

6. There is a fair on at the park this week (noun: public event with games and rides)

1. Don’t forget to wind up your watch (turn a knob on a clock work watch so it keeps going).
2. She seems to enjoy winding him up. ( tell someone something in order to deliberately annoy)
3. If he carries on like this he’s going to wind up in prison. ( end up in an unpleasant situation)

C. Synonymy: English has a lot of different words with similar and slightly different meanings. Look these words that are synonymous with fair and wind up (with the meanings illustrated in A):

Fair- light, blonde, colorless, pale, bleached

Wind up- end, finish, complete, close, close, conclude, terminate, discontinue, and abort

D. Collocation: words are used with each other in fairly fixed ways in English. You cannot, for example use all of the synonyms in C as replacements in the example sentences in A. Hair ca be fair, light, blonde or bleached (though each of these has a slightly different meaning) but it is not usually described as pale or colorless. Skin can be fair, light and pale but it is not usually described as blonde, colorless or bleached. Colorless collocates with, for example gas or liquid.

E. Connotation: Words do not only have meanings, they also have associations. At an advanced level of English, it is important to develop an impression of what connotations certain words have. The sentence ‘who is fairest of them all’, for example, immediately makes English speakers think of the wicked step mother in the children’s fairy tale Snow White and the fairer sex refers to women. Fair meaning beautiful or attractive is an old-fashioned word and it has associations with fairy tales and stories about the past.

F. Register: It is important also to note whether any words you are learning have a particular register. For example, apparel is a formal or literary word and to wind up someone is both British and informal.

I want you all to come up with similar words like fair/wind up and their usage.

I shall wait for your response.

Kind Regards,

Anu Veluri

Manager, Learnwordlist.com

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