hypernym.
A superordinate word or phrase; a term whose referents form a set which includes as a subset the referents of a subordinate term—as, for example, insect (being a hypernym) for ant.
Meaning & usage
A superordinate word or phrase; a term whose referents form a set which includes as a subset the referents of a subordinate term—as, for example, insect (being a hypernym) for ant.
“Musical instrument” is a hypernym of “guitar” because a guitar is a musical instrument: a guitar belongs to a class or type of musical instruments.
Hypernyms of “dog” and “cat” include “mammal”, “homeotherm”, “carnivore”, and “quadruped”.
Where this word comes from
From hyper- (“over”) + -nym (“name”). From Ancient Greek roots; compare Latinate “superordinate term”.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.