Semantic overload

In <a href="/facts/Linguistics/oQuamvf2">linguistics</a>, semantic overload occurs when a word or phrase has more than one meaning, and is used in ways that convey meaning based on its divergent constituent concepts, specifically where this divergence in meanings is novel, or becomes problematic. Semantic overload is related to the linguistic concept of <a href="/facts/Polysemy/en5BnYGW">polysemy</a>. Meanings associated with a semantically overloaded word have different qualities: those the word itself <a href="/facts/Reference/pLmVxBjJ">refers directly</a> to, and other meanings <a href="/facts/Inference/RBbe95bP">inferred</a> from its use in <a href="/facts/Context_(language_use)/eJM44o7x">context</a>.
An example of this is the <a href="/facts/Basque_language/rEMpH97p">Basque</a> word herri which can be translated as nation; country, land; people, population; and town, village, settlement, amongst other things leading to difficulties in translating the indigenous term <a href="/facts/Euskal_herria/zFhbAKoh">Euskal Herria</a>. Another example is the term memory, especially as used in scholarship.
<a href="/facts/Profanity/gf39KK4s">Expletives</a> are also notable for this quality, and conversely this quality is also a contributor to why such terms may be regarded as crude or inappropriate.
Overloading is related to the psychological concept of <a href="/facts/Information_overload/MopSX9bN">information overload</a>, and the computer science concept of <a href="/facts/Operator_overloading/hRyHs4Qf">operator overloading</a>. A term that is semantically overloaded is a kind of "overloaded expression" in language that causes a certain small degree of "information overload" in the receiving audience.

Semantic overload open-in-new

Semantic overload