function word


noun
  1. a word, as a preposition, article, auxiliary, or pronoun, that chiefly expresses grammatical relationships, has little semantic content of its own, and belongs to a small, closed class of words whose membership is relatively fixed (distinguished from content word).

Origin of function word

1
First recorded in 1935–40

Words Nearby function word

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

British Dictionary definitions for function word

function word

noun
  1. grammar a word, such as the, with a particular grammatical role but little identifiable meaning: Compare content word, grammatical meaning

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