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Meaning and the dictionary

المؤلف:  Nick Riemer

المصدر:  Introducing Semantics

الجزء والصفحة:  C2-P46

2026-04-13

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Meaning and the dictionary

The concept of a word’s meaning is closely linked to the concept of definition, which was first made explicit in Greek philosophy by Aristotle. Definitions have been particularly important for conceptual theories of meaning (1.6.2), which traditionally assumed a close link between concepts and definitions: knowing the concept HORSE, for example, is simply the ability to use the word horse in a way that accords with or fits its definition. If I have the concept HORSE, I will be prepared to utter, or assent to, a large number of propositions, including the following, which depend on the definition of horse as ‘a large, four-footed mammal with hooves and a mane’:

As a result, an understanding of definition is necessary for any attempt to develop a conceptual theory of word meaning. Furthermore, when people think of a word’s meaning, they are inclined to think of something like its definition in a dictionary. Since about the sixteenth century, dictionaries have played an extremely important role in the way we think about and use our own language, and their existence and popularity can be related to a complex of pretheoretical ideas about the nature and role of language: a whole linguistic ideology. As a result, it is important to clarify the similarities and differences between the definitions that might be proposed in theoretical linguistic semantics, and the types that can be found in dictionaries.