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From definiens - Wiktionary:

(semantics) The word or phrase that defines the definiendum in a definition.
In the defining statement “A lake is a large, landlocked, naturally occurring stretch of water”, “large, landlocked, naturally occurring stretch of water” is the definiens.

But what is the term to describe “large", "landlocked", "naturally", etc? Definiens also? All I know that if we have a definition "An elephant is an animal", then animal is a hypernym of elephant.


Also: Definition - Wikipedia

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  • You're missing a word or two in the title... Also I'd recommend using the word "term" to make it less confusing.
    – curiousdannii ♦
    Jun 10, 2018 at 14:40
  • is this better?
    – Ooker
    Jun 10, 2018 at 14:52
  • I think it's good now - a term is a sub category of words, and neither the word being defined or those used in its definition have to be terms, in the sense of linguistic jargon.
    – curiousdannii ♦
    Jun 10, 2018 at 14:54
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    Those are all part of the definiens, yes. Depending on what analysis you're doing, you could also call them qualifiers of "stretch of water" or adjective phrases
    – Luke Sawczak
    Jun 11, 2018 at 5:01

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I think keyword can be used if the context is clear that it doesn't refer to the linguistic sense.

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