Polysynthetic definition

pŏlē-sĭn-thĕtĭk
Of or relating to a language such as Eskimo or Mohawk, characterized by long, morphologically complex words with a large number of affixes that express syntactic relationships and meanings usually expressed as phrases or sentences in other languages.
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(grammar) Said of a language, characterized by a prevalence of relatively long words containing a large number of morphemes. Typically, the morphemes are bound (i.e., they cannot stand alone as independent words). An example of a polysynthetic language is Ojibwe, where.

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(mineralogy) Having layers of twin crystals.
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Origin of polysynthetic

  • The Ancient Greek prefix poly- + synthetic, from Latin synthesis (“collection, set, composition"), from Ancient Greek σύνθεσις (sunthesis, “composition"), from συντίθημι (suntithÄ“mi, “to put together, combine"), from συν- (sun-, “together") + τίθημι (tithÄ“mi, “to put, place"), from Proto-Indo-European *dÊ°e- (“to put, to do").

    From Wiktionary

Polysynthetic Sentence Examples

  • From the manner of assemblage, all American languages are agglutinative, or holophrastic, but they should not be called polysynthetic or incorporative or inflexional.

  • Twinned crystals are not common, but the presence of polysynthetic twinning is sometimes shown by fine striations running diagonally or obliquely across the cleavage surfaces.

  • In view of the many evidences of the linguistic character of Sumerian as opposed to the one fact that the language had engrafted upon it a great number of evident Semitisms, the opinion of the present writer is that the Sumerian, as we have it, is fundamentally an agglutinative, almost polysynthetic, language, upon which a more or less deliberately constructed pot-pourri of Semitic inventions was superimposed in the course of many centuries of accretion under Semitic influences.

  • The crystals are sometimes polysynthetic, a large octahedron, e.g., being built up of small cubes.

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Words near polysynthetic in the Dictionary