Meaning of colexify | Babel Free

Definitions

To ascribe multiple meanings to the same word.

Examples

“A language colexifies two distinct senses if it can express them using the same lexical form. For example, English colexifies ‘wood as material’ and ‘firewood’, because it can designate both these senses using the same word wood. (The notion of colexification is not whether a language must express two senses identically, but whether it can.) […] In sum, the two senses in question are dislexified in Spanish, but colexified in English. […] A language may dislexify two senses at a certain point in history, but its descendant may colexify them, or vice versa.”

CEFR level