In linguistics, a word sense is one of the meanings of a word.
For example a dictionary may have over 50 different meanings of the word play, each of these having a different meaning based on the context of the word usage in a sentence. For example:
We went to see the play Romeo and Juliet at the theater. The children went out to play in the park.In each sentence we associate a different meaning of the word "play" based on hints the rest of the sentence gives us.
Computers or people that read words one at a time must use a process called word sense disambiguation to find the correct meaning of a word.
Read more about Word Sense: Related Terms
Famous quotes containing the words word and/or sense:
“Give us that grand word “woman” once again,
And let’s have done with “lady”; one’s a term
Full of fine force, strong, beautiful, and firm,
Fit for the noblest use of tongue or pen;
And one’s a word for lackeys.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855–1919)
“We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)