Lexeme
A lexeme or lexical item is a word – or occasionally a phrase – in its most basic form, like the head words found in a dictionary that are listed each as separate entries. An example is the word ‘spell’; from this lexeme there can be several derivations, e.g. spelled, spelt, spelling, etc. These inflected forms of the root word are not counted as lexemes. The word ‘crane’, as an example, is two lexemes, one meaning a large bird and the other a machine for lifting.
Also included under the heading of lexemes are the so-called phrasal verbs; these are short phrases whose meanings are different from their constituent lexemes, e.g. ‘see to’, ‘break down’, ‘put up with’, ‘wind up’.
Idiomatic phrases that carry meaning as a unit are also counted as lexemes, e.g. ‘give over, ‘rain cats and dogs’, etc.
The collection of lexemes that forms a person’s vocabulary is called his or her lexicon. A dictionary is another kind of lexicon.
