Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or according to the science of semantics.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • pertaining to the meanings of words.
  • of or pertaining to semantics.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or relating to semantics or the meanings of words.
  • adjective web design, of code Reflecting intended structure and meaning.
  • adjective of a detail or distinction Petty or trivial; (of a person or statement) quibbling, niggling.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to meaning or the study of meaning

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French sémantique, from Greek sēmantikos, significant, from sēmantos, marked, from sēmainein, sēman-, to signify, from sēma, sign.]

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Examples

  • The only difference is, in the modern sentential calculus φ and ψ are not construed as terms denoting truth-values, but rather as sentences having truth conditions (though, in the semantics of the sentential calculus, sentences are assigned truth-values as their ˜semantic value™, and they are considered true/false according to which truth-value serves as their semantic value).

    Gottlob Frege Zalta, Edward N. 2008

  • Aristotle, in his time, distinguished between semantic and apophantic propositions, and noted, that if all propositions be _semantic_, not all are _apophantic_.

    Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic Benedetto Croce 1909

  •  The term semantic similarity is misleading as it refers to a type of attributional similarity, yet relational similarity is not any less semantic than attributional similarity.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • The credit money is created by simply moving numbers on a balance sheet, and what I call a semantic fraud against all of us.

    Will Bush be the Author of the Greatest Depression Known to Mankind? 2008

  • So what we call semantic memory, remembering things by conceptual keys, like who was the first president of the United States.

    CNN Transcript Mar 26, 2005 2005

  • So what we call semantic memory, remembering things by conceptual keys, like who was the first president of the United States.

    CNN Transcript Jun 11, 2005 2005

  • Other companies have offered what they call semantic search based on the semantic web approach.

    Original Signal - The best of Web 2.0 2008

  • Other companies have offered what they call semantic search based on the semantic web approach.

    Original Signal - Transmitting Web 2.0 2008

  • Other companies have offered what they call semantic search based on the semantic web approach.

    Original Signal - The best of Web 2.0 2008

  • The qualifier "semantic" is important: semantic programs are composed of encoded information in which symbols stand for and are translated into physical, chemical, and biological objects and processes.

    Against Darwinism 2009

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