Historical Development of Word Meaning – Semantic Change

The Greek word dóma originally meant «roof». In the same way English speakers will metonymically use roof to mean «house» (as in «Now we have a roof over our heads»), the Greeks frequently used dóma to refer to «house», so that that is now the standard meaning of the word. A Russian word will provide a similar example: vinograd, «vineyard», was so frequently used to refer to «grapes», as in «Let's have a taste of the vineyard» that it has come to mean «grapes».extensionMurray Hopper, the late Admiral and computer pioneer, told a story of an early computer that kept calculating incorrectly. When technicians opened up its case to examine the wiring, which physically represented the machine's logic, a huge dead moth was found, shorting out one of the circuits and causing the faulty logic. That moth was the first of its kind to achieve immortality. Because of it, software is now frequently plagued with «bugs».use of bug to refer to an error in computer logic was a metaphorical extension that became so popular that it is now part of the regular meaning of bug. The computer industry has a host of words whose meaning has been extended through such metaphors, including mouse for that now ubiquitous computer input device (so named because the cord connecting it to the computer made it resemble that cutest of rodents).extension is the extension of meaning in a new direction through popular adoption of an originally metaphorical meaning. The crane at a construction site was given its name by comparison to the long-necked bird of the same name. When the meaning of the word daughter was first extended from that of «one's female child» to «a female descendant» (as in daughter of Eve), the listener might not have even noticed that the meaning had been extended.extension is almost a natural process undergone by every word. We don't even think of it as meaning change. In its less obvious instances, we don't even see it as extending the meaning of a word. For example, the word illuminate originally meant «to light up», but has broadened to mean «to clarify», «to edify». These meanings seem so natural as to be integral parts of the words, where senses such as «to celebrate» and «to adorn a page with designs» seem like more obvious additions.few specific metaphors are common to many different languages, and words can be shown to have undergone similar, if independent, developments. Thus the Welsh word haul and the Gaelic word súil, both meaning «sun», have both come to mean «eye». Nor is this metaphor a stranger to English, where the daisy was in Old English originally a compound meaning «day's eye», from its yellow similarity to the sun.often, languages will differ in the precise correspondences between words, so that some languages have broad words with many meanings, which must be translated into multiple words in another language. A word like paternoster, discussed earlier, with senses ranging from the «Lord's Prayer» to «a magic spell» to «a large bead» to «a weighted fishing line» will have to be translated into four different words in another language (though I challenge you to find an English-to-language-of-your - choice dictionary that indicates the four meanings of paternoster).Old Meaning«to light up»is metaphorical extension on a grander scale, with new meanings radiating from a central semantic core to embrace many related ideas. The word head originally referred to that part of the human body above the rest. Since the top of a nail, pin or screw is, like the human head, the top of a slim outline, that sense has become included in the meaning of head. Since the bulb of a cabbage or lettuce is round like the human head, that sense has become included in the meaning of head. Know where I'm headed with this? The meaning of the word head has radiated out to include the head of a coin (the side picturing the human head), the head of the list (the top item in the list), the head of a table, the head of the family, a head of cattle, $50 a head. But I'll stop while I'm ahead.words that have similarly radiated meanings outward from a central core include the words heart, root and sun.only specific subtype of specialization that I have identified is contextual specialization.specializationword undertaker originally meant «one who undertakes a task, especially one who is an entrepreneur». This illustrates contextual specialization, where the meaning of a word is reshaped under pressure from another word that had frequently co-occured with it: thus undertaker acquired its meaning from constant use of the phrase funeral undertaker; eventually, under the pressure towards euphemism, the word funeral was dropped.example of contextual specialization is doctor, which originally meant «a teacher» and then later «an expert», where it came to be used in the phrase medical doctor; now of course this is redundant and medical is omitted, with the primary sense of doctor having become more specialized.Old Meaning«entrepreneur»«teacher»heard an American student at Cambridge University telling some English friends how he climbed over a locked gate to get into his college and tore his pants, and one of them asked, 'But, how could you tear your pants and not your trousers?Moss, «British/American Language Dictionary»occur when the sense of a word expands and contracts, with the final focus of the meaning different from the original. For some reason, words describing clothing tend to shift meanings more frequently than other words, perhaps because fashion trends come and go, leaving words to seem as old fashioned as the clothing they describe. Who today wants to wear bloomers, knickers or pantaloons?word pants has an interesting history. It's ultimate etymon is Old Italian Pantalone. In the 1600s, Italy developed commedia dell'arte, a style of comedy based on improvisation using stock characters. Pantalone was a stock character who was portrayed as a foolish old man wearing slippers and tight trousers. Through regular metyonmy, speakers of Old French borrowed his name to describe his Italian trousers. Their word was then borrowed into English as pantaloo