Hyponym

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In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic range is included within that of another word. For example, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and crimson are all hyponyms of red (their hypernym).

According to Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman's Introduction to Language (ISBN 0-03-018682-X), hyponyms are a set of related words whose meaning are specific instances of a more general word (so, for example, red, white, blue, etc., are hyponyms of colour). Hyponymy is thus the relationship between a general term such as polygon and specific instances of it, such as triangle.

[edit] See also

• -onym
• Sub- and Subcategory
• Meronymy