function word

noun

1. a word, as a preposition, article, auxiliary, or pronoun, that chiefly expresses grammatical relationships, has little semantic content of its own, and belongs to a small, closed class of words whose membership is relatively fixed ( content word ).

function word

noun

1. grammar a word, such as the , with a particular grammatical role but little identifiable meaning Compare content word grammatical meaning

Word History and Origins

Origin of function word¹

First recorded in 1935–40