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Glite Dictionary
polymorphemic

polymorphemic

9.6
A word made of two or more small parts that each have meaning
  • adjective
  • /ˌpɒliˈmɔrfɪmɪk/
  • Specialized
translation icon : polimorfo
  • The term polymorphemic describes words with multiple morphemes.

Examples

  • The word polymorphemic itself is made up of several morphemes.

  • Languages with complex polymorphemic words often have rich derivational morphology.

  • In linguistic analysis, a polymorphemic word can be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

  • Is polymorphemic a common term in linguistics?

  • In linguistic analysis, a polymorphemic word can be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

  • Languages with complex polymorphemic words often have rich derivational morphology.

  • The term polymorphemic describes words that consist of two or more morphemes.

How Complex

polymorphemic
  • Specialized
9.6
bimorphemic
  • Specialized
9.9
monomorphemic
  • Specialized
9.9

Surface Forms

polymorphemic positive

Morphology

polymorphemic = morphemic (semi-transparent) = poly + morpheme + ic

The formation is clear enough as 'poly-' plus 'morphemic', but the term is technical and unlikely to be fully transparent to an average learner.

Etymology

The word polymorphemic comes from poly- meaning 'many' (as in polygon) and morpheme meaning a small 'meaning part' of a word. So polymorphemic describes a word that is made of two or more of these small parts.