desemanticize

English

Verb

desemanticize (third-person singular simple present desemanticizes, present participle desemanticizing, simple past and past participle desemanticized)

1. To remove semantic content from; (especially) to cause to undergo desemanticization.
2. (rare) To lose semantic content; to undergo desemanticization.
   • 2011, Michael T. Putnam, Studies on German-Language Islands, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 406:

     The purposive meaning desemanticizes and a new marker is drafted in to reinforce the purposive meaning.

   • '2011, Jim Feist, Premodifiers in English: Their Structure and Significance, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 232:

     […] that of preceding and modifying another word, and in gaining the new grammatical meaning of modification. They desemanticise, in losing the descriptive meaning that head nouns have in descriptive use, […]

See also

• desemantize