What does word mean?

Definitions for word
wɜrdword

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word word.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. wordnoun

    a unit of language that native speakers can identify

    "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning"

  2. wordnoun

    a brief statement

    "he didn't say a word about it"

  3. news, intelligence, tidings, wordnoun

    information about recent and important events

    "they awaited news of the outcome"

  4. wordnoun

    a verbal command for action

    "when I give the word, charge!"

  5. discussion, give-and-take, wordnoun

    an exchange of views on some topic

    "we had a good discussion"; "we had a word or two about it"

  6. parole, word, word of honornoun

    a promise

    "he gave his word"

  7. wordnoun

    a word is a string of bits stored in computer memory

    "large computers use words up to 64 bits long"

  8. Son, Word, Logosnoun

    the divine word of God; the second person in the Trinity (incarnate in Jesus)

  9. password, watchword, word, parole, countersignnoun

    a secret word or phrase known only to a restricted group

    "he forgot the password"

  10. Bible, Christian Bible, Book, Good Book, Holy Scripture, Holy Writ, Scripture, Word of God, Wordverb

    the sacred writings of the Christian religions

    "he went to carry the Word to the heathen"

  11. give voice, formulate, word, phrase, articulateverb

    put into words or an expression

    "He formulated his concerns to the board of trustees"

Wiktionary

  1. wordnoun

    The fact or action of speaking, as opposed to writing or to action.

  2. wordnoun

    Something which has been said; a comment, utterance; speech.

  3. wordnoun

    A distinct unit of language (sounds in speech or written letters) with a particular meaning, composed of one or more morphemes, and also of one or more phonemes that determine its sound pattern.

  4. wordnoun

    A distinct unit of language which is approved by some authority.

  5. wordnoun

    News; tidings.

    Have you had any word from John yet?

  6. wordnoun

    An order; a request or instruction.

    He sent word that we should strike camp before winter.

  7. wordnoun

    A promise; an oath or guarantee.

    I give you my word that I will be there on time.

  8. wordnoun

    Christ.

  9. wordnoun

    Communication from god; the message of the Christian gospel; the Bible.

    Her parents had lived in Botswana, spreading the word among the tribespeople.

  10. wordverb

    To say or write (something) using particular words.

    I'm not sure how to word this letter to the council.

  11. wordnoun

    A brief discussion or conversation.

    Can I have a word with you?

  12. wordnoun

    Angry debate or conversation; argument.

    There had been words between him and the secretary about the outcome of the meeting.

  13. wordnoun

    Any sequence of letters or characters considered as a discrete entity.

  14. wordnoun

    A unit of text equivalent to five characters and one space.

  15. wordnoun

    A fixed-size group of bits handled as a unit by a machine. On many 16-bit machines a word is 16 bits or two bytes.

  16. wordnoun

    A finite string which is not a command or operator.

  17. wordnoun

    A group element, expressed as a product of group elements.

  18. wordnoun

    Different symbols, written or spoken, arranged together in a unique sequence that approximates a thought in a person's mind.

  19. wordinterjection

    truth, to tell or speak the truth; the shortened form of the statement, "My word is my bond," an expression eventually shortened to "Word is bond," before it finally got cut to just "Word," which is its most commonly used form.

  20. wordinterjection

    An abbreviated form of word up; a statement of the acknowledgment of fact with a hint of nonchalant approval.

  21. Wordnoun

    Scripture; The Bible

  22. Wordnoun

    The creative word of God; logos

  23. Etymology: From wurdan, from werdʰo-, from wer-; cognate with Old Frisian, Old Saxon (Dutch woord), Old High German wort (German Wort), Old Norse orð (Icelandic orð, Swedish ord), Gothic. The Proto-Indo-European root is also the source of Latin verbum, Lithuanian vardas, and, more distantly, of Ancient Greek and Old Slavonic (Russian).

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. WORDnoun

    Etymology: word , Saxon; woord, Dutch.

    If you speak three words, it will three times report you the three words. Francis Bacon.

    As conceptions are the images of things to the mind within itself, so are words or names the marks of those conceptions to the minds of them we converse with. Robert South, Sermons.

    Amongst men who confound their ideas with words, there must be endless disputes, wrangling, and jargon. John Locke.

    Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells,
    Each word catcher that lives on syllables. Alexander Pope.

    Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
    —— Two thousand, and I’ll vouchsafe thee the hearing. William Shakespeare.

    A word, Lucilius,
    How he receiv’d you. William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar.

    A friend who shall own thee in thy lowest condition, answer all thy wants, and, in a word, never leave thee. South.

    In a word, the Gospel describes God to us in all respects such a one as we would wish him to be. John Tillotson.

    Why should calamity be full of words?
    —— Windy attorneys to their client woes!
    Let them have scope, though what they do impart
    Help nothing else, yet they do ease the heart. William Shakespeare, R. III.

    If you dislike the play,
    Pray make no words on’t ’till the second day,
    Or third be past; for we would have you know it,
    The loss will fall on us, not on the poet. John Denham.

    Cease this contention: be thy words severe,
    Sharp as he merits; but the sword forbear. Dryden.

    If words are sometimes to be used, they ought to be grave, kind, and sober, representing the ill, or unbecomingness of the faults. John Locke.

    If I appear a little word-bound in my first solutions, I hope it will be imputed to the long disuse of speech. Spectator.

    In argument upon a case,
    Some words there grew ’twixt Somerset and me. William Shakespeare.

    Found you no displeasure by word or countenance? William Shakespeare.

    I’ll write thee a challenge, or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.

    He commanded the men to be ranged in battalions, and rid to every squadron, giving them such words as were proper to the occasion. Edward Hyde.

    An easy way, by word of mouth communicated to me. Boyle.

    Obey thy parents, keep thy word justly, swear not. William Shakespeare.

    I take your princely word for these redresses.
    —— I give it you, and will maintain my word. William Shakespeare, H. IV.

    The duke shall wield his conqu’ring sword,
    The king shall pass his honest word. Dryden.

    Every soldier, kill his prisoners;
    Give the word through. William Shakespeare, Henry V.

    Bring me word thither
    How the world goes, that to the pace of it
    I may spur on my journey. William Shakespeare, Coriolanus.

    Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
    Transport her purposes by word? William Shakespeare, King Lear.

    Two optick nerves she ties,
    Like spectacles across the eyes;
    By which the spirits bring her word,
    Whene’er the balls are fix’d or stirr’d. Matthew Prior.

    I know you brave, and take you at your word;
    That present service which you vaunt, afford. Dryden.

    Every person has enough to do to work out his own salvation; which, if we will take the apostle’s word, is to be done with fear and trembling. Decay of Piety.

    I desire not the reader should take my word, and therefore I will set two of their discourses in the same light for every man to judge. Dryden.

    They say this church of England neither hath the word purely preached, nor the sacraments sincerely ministred. John Whitgift.

    Thou my Word, begotten son, by thee
    This I perform. John Milton.

  2. To Wordverb

    To express in proper words.

    Let us blacken him what we can, said Harrison of the blessed king, upon the wording and drawing up his charge against approaching trial. Robert South, Sermons.

    Whether I have improved these fables or no, in the wording or meaning of them, the book must stand or fall to itself. Roger L'Estrange.

    The apology for the king is the same, but worded with greater deference to that great prince. Addison.

  3. To Wordverb

    To dispute.

    Etymology: from the noun.

    He that descends not to word it with a shrew, does worse than beat her. Roger L'Estrange.

Wikipedia

  1. Word

    In linguistics, a word of a spoken language can be defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning. For many languages, words also correspond to sequences of graphemes ("letters") in their standard writing systems that are delimited by spaces wider than the normal inter-letter space, or by other graphical conventions. The concept of "word" is usually distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of speech which has a meaning, even if it will not stand on its own. In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a "word" may be mostly learned as part of learning the writing system. This is the case of the English language, and of most languages that are written with alphabets derived from the ancient Latin or Greek alphabets. There is still no consensus among linguists about the proper definition of "word" in a spoken language that is independent of its writing system, nor about the precise distinction between it and "morpheme". This issue is particularly debated for Chinese and other languages of East Asia, and may be moot for Afro-Asiatic languages. InEnglish orthography, the letter sequences "rock", "god", "write", "with", "the", "not" are considered to be single-morpheme words, whereas "rocks", "ungodliness", "typewriter", and "cannot" are words composed of two or more morphemes ("rock"+"s", "un"+"god"+"li"+"ness", "type"+"writ"+"er", and "can"+"not"). In English and many other languages, the morphemes that make up a word generally include at least one root (such as "rock", "god", "type", "writ", "can", "not") and possibly some affixes ("-s", "un-", "-ly", "-ness"). Words with more than one root ("[type][writ]er", "[cow][boy]s", "[tele][graph]ically") are called compound. Words are combined to form other elements of language, such as phrases ("a red rock", "put up with"), clauses ("I threw a rock"), and sentences ("I threw a rock, but missed").

ChatGPT

  1. word

    A word is a unit of language that can be spoken or written, typically consisting of one or more phonemes and representing a specific concept, object, action, or idea. Words are the basic building blocks of communication, allowing individuals to convey meaning, express thoughts, and establish shared understanding.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Wordnoun

    the spoken sign of a conception or an idea; an articulate or vocal sound, or a combination of articulate and vocal sounds, uttered by the human voice, and by custom expressing an idea or ideas; a single component part of human speech or language; a constituent part of a sentence; a term; a vocable

  2. Wordnoun

    hence, the written or printed character, or combination of characters, expressing such a term; as, the words on a page

  3. Wordnoun

    talk; discourse; speech; language

  4. Wordnoun

    account; tidings; message; communication; information; -- used only in the singular

  5. Wordnoun

    signal; order; command; direction

  6. Wordnoun

    language considered as implying the faith or authority of the person who utters it; statement; affirmation; declaration; promise

  7. Wordnoun

    verbal contention; dispute

  8. Wordnoun

    a brief remark or observation; an expression; a phrase, clause, or short sentence

  9. Wordverb

    to use words, as in discussion; to argue; to dispute

  10. Wordverb

    to express in words; to phrase

  11. Wordverb

    to ply with words; also, to cause to be by the use of a word or words

  12. Wordverb

    to flatter with words; to cajole

Wikidata

  1. Word

    In language, a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content. This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme, or several, whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word. A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes, or more than one root in a compound. Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases, clauses, and sentences. The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the English alphabet.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Word

    wurd, n. an oral or written sign expressing an idea or notion: talk, discourse: signal or sign: message: promise: declaration: a pass-word, a watch-word, a war-cry: the Holy Scripture, or a part of it: (pl.) verbal contention.—v.t. to express in words: (Shak.) to flatter.—v.i. to speak, talk.—ns. Word′-blind′ness, loss of ability to read; Word′-book, a book with a collection of words: a vocabulary.—adj. Word′-bound, unable to find expression in words.—n. Word′-build′ing, the formation or composition of words.—adj. Wor′ded, expressed in words.—adv. Wor′dily.—ns. Wor′diness; Wor′ding, act, manner, or style of expressing in words.—adj. Wor′dish (obs.), verbose.—n. Wor′dishness.—adj. Word′less (Shak.), without words, silent.—ns. Word′-mem′ory, the power of recalling words to the mind; Word′-paint′er, one who describes vividly; Word′-paint′ing, the act of describing anything clearly and fully by words only; Word′-pic′ture, a description in words which presents an object to the mind as if in a picture.—adj. Wor′dy, full of words: using or containing many words.—Word for word, literally, verbatim.—Break one's word, to fail to fulfil a promise; By word of mouth, orally; Good word, favourable mention, praise; Hard words, angry, hot words; Have a word with, to have some conversation with; Have words with, to quarrel, dispute with; In a word, In one word, in short, to sum up; In word, in speech only, in profession only; Pass one's word, to make a promise; The Word, the Scripture: (theol.) the second person in the Trinity, the Logos. [A.S. word; Goth. waurd, Ice. orth, Ger. wort; also conn. with L. verbum, a word, Gr. eirein, to speak.]

The Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz

  1. WORD

    Something you must keep after giving it to another.

Dictionary of Nautical Terms

  1. word

    The watch-word; the parole and countersign, which, being issued to the authorized persons at guard-mounting, become a test whereby spies or strangers are detected.

Rap Dictionary

  1. wordnoun

    What? None of this makes sense.

  2. wordnoun

    Really?(used in a question) Speaker 1:"Yo I got that." Speaker 2:"Oh word?"

  3. wordnoun

    money (Cuse Town shit)

Editors Contribution

  1. word

    A unit of language.

    Words are an important part of language.


    Submitted by MaryC on January 12, 2020  


  2. wordnoun

    Slang word for Definitely! Yes! You got that right.

    The BEAST was a heavy group!… WORD!( yes they were)

    Etymology: Evolved from Word Is Bond. Shortened from My WORD is my bond. Right? Word is bond! Word!!


    Submitted by theronnieacestation on May 2, 2023  

Suggested Resources

  1. WORD

    What does WORD stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the WORD acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. WORD

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Word is ranked #5628 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Word surname appeared 6,177 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 2 would have the surname Word.

    57.9% or 3,579 total occurrences were White.
    37.1% or 2,295 total occurrences were Black.
    2.2% or 139 total occurrences were of two or more races.
    1.9% or 118 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
    0.4% or 26 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.
    0.3% or 20 total occurrences were Asian.

British National Corpus

  1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'word' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #512

  2. Written Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'word' in Written Corpus Frequency: #437

  3. Nouns Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'word' in Nouns Frequency: #35

How to pronounce word?

How to say word in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of word in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of word in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6

Examples of word in a Sentence

  1. Robert E. Lee:

    Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less.

  2. Larry Hardiman:

    The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.

  3. Ahmaud Arbery The father:

    I pray that no one in this courtroom ever has to do what we had to do, bury their child, there is no word for that because no word knows that much pain.

  4. Zoe Saldana:

    Im proud of him. Im happy that hes coming back, im so proud of Disney, actually, that all the leaders right now behind that big corporation decided to lead by example, and spreading the word and the message of redemption is important.

  5. Mark Twain:

    The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

word#1#810#10000

Translations for word

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

Get even more translations for word »

Translation

Find a translation for the word definition in other languages:

Select another language:

  • - Select -
  • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
  • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Esperanto (Esperanto)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Português (Portuguese)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Русский (Russian)
  • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
  • 한국어 (Korean)
  • עברית (Hebrew)
  • Gaeilge (Irish)
  • Українська (Ukrainian)
  • اردو (Urdu)
  • Magyar (Hungarian)
  • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
  • Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • தமிழ் (Tamil)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • తెలుగు (Telugu)
  • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
  • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
  • Čeština (Czech)
  • Polski (Polish)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Românește (Romanian)
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • Ελληνικά (Greek)
  • Latinum (Latin)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Dansk (Danish)
  • Suomi (Finnish)
  • فارسی (Persian)
  • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
  • հայերեն (Armenian)
  • Norsk (Norwegian)
  • English (English)

Word of the Day

Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?

Please enter your email address:


Citation

Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"word." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/word>.

Discuss these word definitions with the community:

0 Comments

    Are we missing a good definition for word? Don't keep it to yourself...

    Image or illustration of

    word

    Credit »

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Chrome

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Firefox

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Browse Definitions.net

    Quiz

    Are you a words master?

    »
    cross-fertilization in plants
    A urus
    B sousing
    C impounding
    D allogamy

    Nearby & related entries:

    Alternative searches for word: