glosseme

American

[glos-eem, glaw-seem] / ˈglɒs im, ˈglɔ sim /

noun

Linguistics.

(in glossematics) an irreducible, invariant form, as a morpheme or tagmeme, that functions as the smallest meaningful unit of linguistic signaling.

glosseme British

/ ˈɡlɒsiːm /

noun

the smallest meaningful unit of a language, such as stress, form, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

glossemic

adjective

Etymology

Origin of glosseme

First recorded in 1925–30; gloss(o)- + -eme

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023