Phrase guide

function word

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A word that has little meaning when standing alone, but instead serves to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker, including conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, certain frequent adverbs.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: functor, grammatical word

Antonyms: content word, lexical word

2

noun

Meaning 2

a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: closed-class word

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: word

Narrower terms: determiner, determinative, preposition, pronoun, conjunction, conjunctive, connective, continuative, particle

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Across languages

Translations

20 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: كَلِمَة وَظِيفِيَّة (kalima waẓīfiyya) — function word
  • Dutch: functiewoord — function word
  • Finnish: funktiosana — function word
  • Finnish: kieliopillinen sana — function word
  • French: mot-outil — function word
  • French: mot grammatical — function word
  • German: Funktionswort — function word
  • German: Synsemantikum — function word
  • Italian: parola vuota — function word
  • Japanese: 機能語 (kinōgo) — function word
  • Korean: 문법형태소 (munbeophyeongtaeso) — function word
  • Polish: funktor — function word
  • Portuguese: palavra gramatical — function word
  • Russian: служебное сло́во (služebnoje slóvo) — function word
  • Spanish: palabra funcional — function word
  • Spanish: palabra gramatical — function word
  • Spanish: palabra cenemática — function word
  • Swedish: formord — function word
  • Swedish: funktionsord — function word
  • Welsh: gair ffwythiannol — function word