- Autological word
An autological word or homological word is a word that describes itself, that is self-referential. Since
adjective s are words that are designed to describe things, including words, most autological words areadjective s.Other parts of speech may be autological:
noun s andverb s can also be self-descriptive, though not in the same way that adjectives are;phrase s may be autological, e.g., “three words long” is three words long; likewise acronyms may be, likeTLA for “Three Letter Acronym”.Heterological
A word which is not autological is
heterological , except the word “heterological” itself, which logically cannot be either – see the . The word “autological” itself may be taken, without contradiction, to be either autological or heterological – see .Ostensive definitions
A source of autological words are words coined by
ostensive definition : one names a phenomenon by an example of it, frequently the first, and the resulting term is thus autological.Examples include , , and .Japanese examples include "jūbako" (重箱) and "yutō" (湯桶); see:
Kanji#Other readings .ee also
*
Grelling–Nelson paradox
*Self-reference
*
*External links
* [http://www.segerman.org/autological.html Autological words]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.