Meronymy and holonymy

Not to be confused with metonymy or meronomy.

Meronymy (from Greek μέρος meros, "part" and ὄνομα onoma, "name") is a semantic relation specific to linguistics, distinct from the similar metonymy. A meronym denotes a constituent part of, or a member of something. That is,

"X" is a meronym of "Y" if Xs are parts of Y(s), or

"X" is a meronym of "Y" if Xs are members of Y(s).

For example, finger is a meronym of hand because a finger is part of a hand. Similarly, wheels is a meronym of automobile.

Meronymy is the opposite of holonymy. A closely related concept is that of mereology, which specifically deals with part-whole relations and is used in logic. It is formally expressed in terms of first-order logic. A meronymy can also be considered a partial order.

A meronym refers to a part of a whole. A word denoting a subset of what another word denotes is a hyponym. For example, a hyponym of tree is pine tree or oak tree ("a kind of tree"), but a meronym of tree is bark or leaf ("a part of a tree").

In knowledge representation languages, meronymy is often expressed as "part-of".

Etymology

The word meronymy comes from the Greek meros (part) + onuma (name), meaning "a named part of the thing". Thus it refers to naming parts of a thing, not a category or type of thing.

See also

• Synecdoche