lexis language change and variation

loanwords

word borrowed from other places in the world

latinate

lexis which is often polysyllabic

french

lexis often sound “elegant”

semantic drift

the journey a word and how it changes diachronically

specialisation

a word’s meaning narrows

pejoration

word’s meaning deteriorates

amelioration

word’s meaning improves

generalisation

word’s meaning broadens

etymology

birth and journey of a word

obsolete lexis

words have died from the language

archaic lexis

words that are out of fashion and no longer in use

eponym

where a discovery, invention, or place is named after the person who founded it

portmanteau

blending of words to create neologisms