content word

con·tent word  (kntnt)

n.

A word, such as a noun, verb, or adjective, that has a statable lexical meaning, rather than indicating a syntactic function, as a function word does.

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content word [ˈkɒntɛnt]

n

(Linguistics) a word to which an independent meaning can be given by reference to a world outside any sentence in which the word may occur Compare function word, lexical meaning

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

content word - a word to which an independent meaning can be assigned open-class word 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" head word, headword - a content word that can be qualified by a modifier 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 modifier, qualifier - a content word that qualifies the meaning of a noun or verb lexical meaning - the meaning of a content word that depends on the nonlinguistic concepts it is used to express