lemma.

1. A word form chosen as a dictionary headword to represent the other forms of the same lexical item.

2. A mathematical or logical proposition established to support the proof of another result.

3. The lower of two small leaflike structures enclosing a grass flower within its spikelet.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• dictionary lemma
• headword lemma
• lemma selection

On the page

The search tool maps sang and singing to the lemma sing.

The corpus counts lemmas separately from the individual forms found in the text.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal / analytical. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Singular lemma; plural lemmas or lemmata. Commonness: moderately common (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: MW full entry directly read mathematical supporting proposition, textual theme/heading, glossed word/phrase and separate botanical lower enclosing bract; plural lemmas or lemmata. Cambridge successful slower reading after timeout explicitly defines dictionary form representing other forms. Three useful scopes retained; textual heading/gloss overflow flagged. Individually useful in research, criticism, methodology or conceptual analysis. Definitions and examples are original; no mood or intensity assigned to neutral analytical concepts. Commonness is an editorial estimate, not a frequency statistic. Writing functions: representative forms in lexical analysis, auxiliary mathematical results.