Meaning
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
'The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things' [...] --Through the Looking-Glass "For a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’—though not for all—this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language." --Philosophical Investigations (1953) by Ludwig Wittgenstein, see picture theory of language "Words: Can't say what they mean don't mean what they say" --Tom Tom Club |
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Meaning refers to the the symbolic value of something, its significance. In semantics it refers to the objects or concept that a word or phrase denotes, or that which a sentence says.
Meaning may also refer to:
- Meaning (linguistics), which is communicated through the use of languages
- Meaning (semiotics) has to do with the distribution of signs in sign relations
- Meaning (philosophy of language), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy
- Meaning (psychology), epistemological position, in psychology as well as philosophy, linguistics, semiotics and sociology
- Meaning (existential), as it is understood in contemporary existentialism
- The meaning of life, a notion concerning the nature of human existence
Titles
- Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1911) by Henri Bergson
- Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) by Dick Hebdige
- Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things (1991) by Stephen Bayley
Etymology
From Middle English mening, menyng, equivalent to mean + -ing. Cognate with Scots mening (“intent, purpose, sense, meaning”), West Frisian miening (“opinion, mind”), Dutch mening (“view, opinion, judgement”), German Meinung (“opinion, view, mind, idea”), Danish and Swedish mening (“meaning, sense, sentence, opinion”), Icelandic meining (“meaning”).
See also
- Absurdity
- Ambiguity
- Context
- Communication
- Connotation
- Definition
- Denotation
- Dictum
- Dictionary
- Double entendre
- Hermeneutics
- Intention
- Interpretation
- Language
- Linguistics
- Logotherapy
- Man's Search for Meaning (1946) by Viktor Frankl
- Meaninglessness
- Meme
- Metaphor
- Nonsense
- Opinion
- Philosophers encroaching on the province of grammarians
- Polysemy
- Purpose
- Semantics
- Sententiae
- Significance
- Symbolism
- Thesaurus
- Trope
- Utterance
- Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, a painting by Paul Gauguin