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Sep 17, 2024
This week’s theme
Words made with combining forms

This week’s words
polyandry
hypernym
arthroplasty
neophile
hierophant

hypernym
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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A.Word.A.Day
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hypernym

PRONUNCIATION:
(HY-puhr-nim)

MEANING:
noun: A broad term that encompasses specific words within a category. For example, color is a hypernym of red, blue, green, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek hyper- (over, above) + -onym (name). Earliest documented use: 1971. The counterpart is hyponym.

USAGE:
“The realm of financial technology is a hodgepodge of businesses touching finance, investing and capital movements that is lumped into a trendy but amorphous hypernym.”
Jason Schenker; Robot Advisers a Big Market Risk; Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston, West Virginia); Mar 19, 2017.

See more usage examples of hypernym in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
What power has love but forgiveness? -William Carlos Williams, poet (17 Sep 1883-1963)

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