polysemous
/pəˈlɪs.ɪ.məs/
"polysemous" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“polysemous” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Synonym of polysemic.
Corpus desk
Index EN-polysemous · polysemous · English
polysemous · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | polysemous |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /pəˈlɪs.ɪ.məs/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “polysemous” in English
Rare enough to double-check
polysemous is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /pəˈlɪs.ɪ.məs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Synonym of polysemic.".
Zero misspellings are on record for polysemous in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Medieval Latin polysēmus, from Ancient Greek πολύσημος (polúsēmos), from πολύς (polús, “many”) + σημαίνω (sēmaínō, “I signify, mean”). The correct English form is polysemous, spelled P-O-L-Y-S-E-M-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Synonym of polysemic.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how polysemous appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But just how are the meanings associated with a polysemous word related? A look at the entries for polysemous words in different dictionaries shows that lexicographers cannot agree on how to divide up the semantic space […]
Etymology
From Medieval Latin polysēmus, from Ancient Greek πολύσημος (polúsēmos), from πολύς (polús, “many”) + σημαίνω (sēmaínō, “I signify, mean”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.