ANTONOMASIA

Antonomasia (pronounced an-tuh-nuh–mey-zhuh) is a literary term in which a descriptive phrase replaces a person’s name.  Antonomasia can range from lighthearted nicknames to epic names.The phrase antonomasia is derived from the Greek phrase antonomazein meaning “to name differently.” Oftentimes, antonomasia is used to call attention to a certain characteristic.

There are some examples of Antonomasia:

Example 1

Imagine that you have a friend who is a fant
astic chef, and you want to say hello. Normal sentence:“Oh, look! Sam’s arrived!”Sentence with Antonomasia:“Oh, look! The great chef has arrived!”Here, the use of antonomasia allows you to greet your friend with a nickname which also reveals something about his character: he’s a great chef.

Example 2



For another example, consider that you have a grumpy teacher:  Normal sentence:“He’s grumpy, boring, doesn’t want to listen to anyone, and definitely doesn’t want to help anyone.”Sentence with Antonomasia:“Mr. Grumps doesn’t want to listen to anyone, and definitely doesn’t want to help anyone.”Replacing the teacher’s actual name with his defining characteristic, grumpiness, serves to highlight just how much the mood is associated with the man.




Example of Antonomasia in literature
Antonomasia is important in literature, as it can tell more about characters just by their titles. Consider a few examples:Another example of antonomasia is in Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein’s inability to give the monster a true name is apparent in his constant use of antonomasia:“I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created”“the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life”“Devil, do you dare approach me?”“Begone, vile insect!”Frankenstein’s creation is never given a name, and instead is given countless instances of antonomasia which show Frankenstein’s inability to accept his creation.(http://literaryterms.net/antonomasia/)

A HOMOGRAPH

A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but has a different sound and a different meaning:
lead (to go in front of)/lead (a metal)
wind (to follow a course that is not straight)/wind (a gust of air)bass
(low, deep sound)/bass (a type of fish)


A HOMOPHONE

A homophone is a word that has the same sound as another word but is spelled differently and has a different meaning:

to/two/too
there/their/they're
pray/prey


The ending –graph means drawn or written, so a homograph has the same spelling. The –phone ending means sound or voice, so a homophone has the same pronunciation. But here's where it gets tricky.


A HOMONYM

The term homonym is a somewhat ambiguous term if you are looking to contrast it with homographs and homophones. The prefix of the wordhomo is Greek and means “same,” and the root of the word onym means “name.” The literal translation would be “same name” or “same word.”The next logical question to ask then is when talking about words, what should be used to define their names? Should it be their spelling or their pronunciation? The answer, of course, is that both should be taken into consideration.Homonyms, therefore, are defined as two or more words that share the same spelling, or the same pronunciation, or both, but have different meanings. In this sense, homonyms are sort of an overarching umbrella that homographs and homophones both fall under. If you are speaking about homonyms, you are speaking broadly about words with different meanings but similar spellings or sounds. If you are talking about homographs or homophones, you are talking about a more specific word set underneath the homonym label.

POLYSEMY


Polysemy is the association of one word with two or more distinct meanings. Apolyseme is a word or phrase with multiple meanings.
 Adjective   : polysemous orpolysemic.In contrast, a one-to-one match between a word and a meaning is called monosemy. According to William Croft, "Monosemy is probably most clearly found in specializedvocabulary dealing with technical topics" (The Handbook of Linguistics, 2003).According to some estimates, more than 40% of English words have more than one meaning. The fact that so many words (orlexemes) are polysemous "shows thatsemantic changes often add meanings to the language without subtracting any" (M. Lynne Murphy, Lexical Meaning, 2010).Polysemy is became from two words, there are poly “many” and sema “sign”. Polysemy is a word or phrase with multiple meanings. It has association of one word with two or more distinct meanings. So, polysemy is the phenomenon of having or being open to several or many meanings.

(http://grammar.about.com/od/il/fl/lexical-meaning-words.htm)


Examples of Polysemy:


Man

1. The human species (i.e., man vs. animal)

2. Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman)

3. Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)

This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example
1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.


Mole
1. a small burrowing mammal

2. consequently, there are several different entities called moles (see the Moledisambiguation page). Although these refer todifferent things, their names derive from 1. :e.g. A Moleburrows for information hoping to go undetected.