Noun | 1. | open-class word - a word to which an independent meaning can be assigned word - 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" noun - a content word that can be used to refer to a person, place, thing, quality, or action verb - a content word that denotes an action, occurrence, or state of existence lexical meaning - the meaning of a content word that depends on the nonlinguistic concepts it is used to express |