Dictionary Definition
headword
Noun
1 a word that is qualified by a modifier [syn:
head
word]
2 a word placed at the beginning of a line or
paragraph (as in a dictionary entry)
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
- a word used as the title of a section, particularly in an dictionary, encyclopedia, or thesaurus
- any word which may be
modified by an adjunct
- a very discerning car shopper, "shopper" is the headword.
Translations
a word used as the title of a section
- Polish: hasło
Extensive Definition
A headword, head word, lemma, or sometimes
catchword is the word under which a set of related dictionary or encyclopaedia entries
appears. The headword is used to locate the entry, and dictates its
alphabetical position. Depending on the size and nature of the
dictionary or encyclopedia, the entry may include alternative
meanings of the word, its etymology and pronunciation, compound
words or phrases that contain the headword, and encyclopedic
information about the concepts represented by the word.
For example, the headword bread may contain the following
(simplified) definitions:
The
Academic Dictionary of Lithuanian contains around 500,000
headwords. The Oxford
English Dictionary has around 300,000 headwords http://www.oed.com/about/facts.html,
while Merriam-Webster's
Third New International Dictionary has about 470,000 http://www.merriam-webster.com/premium/mwunabridged/.
Both of these values are as claimed by the dictionary makers, and
may not be using exactly the same definition of a headword. Also,
the Oxford English Dictionary covers each word much more
exhaustively than the Third New International.
The term 'lemma' comes from the practice in
Greco-Roman antiquity of using the word to refer to the headwords
of marginal glosses in scholia; for this reason, the
Ancient
Greek plural form is sometimes used, namely lemmata (Greek
λῆμμα, pl. λήμματα).
headword in Breton: Pennger
headword in Swedish:
uppslagsord