lexical item

lexical +‎ item

lexical item (plural lexical items)

1. (semantics) A term (that is, a word or sequence of words) that acts as a unit of meaning, including words, phrases, phrasal verbs and proverbs; exemplified by cat, traffic light, take care of, by-the-way, and don't count your chickens before they hatch.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:lexical item.
   • 1993, Roman Kopytko, Polite Discourse in Shakespeare's English, page 396:

     He also realized that by comparing different types of text you may be able to spot "a different density ( repetition rate ) of lexical items, and different degrees of cohesion, in the short story and in the novel.

   • 1998, Edda Weigand, Contrastive Lexical Semantics, page 22:

     It is not surprising that this is a very common structure in language, because it allows the flexibility that was identified earlier in this paper as essential for an adequate lexical item.

   • 2007, Kristel Proost ·, Conceptual Structure in Lexical Items, page 114:

     The meaning of lexical items may be described in terms of combinations of semantic features.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 490:

     Thus there are 3751 lexical items covered in total. Taking into account polysemy, there are 4315 separate senses.

• Wikidata:lexical item