What is "semasiology"

Semantics \Sem*an"tics\, n. sing. or pl. [Gr. shmantikos having meaning, from sh^ma a sign.]

1. the study of the meanings of words and of the sense development of words; -- formerly called semasiology.

2. a doctrine and philosophical approach to language and its relationship to thought and behavior, developed by Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950), which holds that the capacity to express ideas and thereby improve one's interaction with others and one's environment is enhanced by training in the more critical use of words and other symbols; -- also called {general semantics}.

3. the meanings of words as they are used to achieve an effect; especially, the multiple meanings of words or the multiplicity of words having the same meaning; -- used in referring to the confusion that can be caused (intentionally or unintentionally) by multiple meanings; as, there's no real difference, it's only a matter of semantics.

n. 1 (context linguistics English) A discipline within linguistics concerned with the meaning of a word independent of its phonetic expression. 2 (rfdef lang=en As defined this is more or less synonymous with semantics (which it predates), but it now has a different meaning, I think.)

Semasiology (from (semasia) "signification, meaning") is a discipline within linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word X mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless of their phonetic expression. Semasiology departs from a word or lexical expression and asks for its meaning, its different senses, i.e. polysemy. The opposite approach is known as onomasiology.

The term was first used by Christian Karl Reisig in 1825 in his Vorlesungen über lateinische Sprachwissenschaft (E. Lectures on Latin Linguistics) and was in use in English by 1847. Semantics replaced it in its original meaning, beginning in 1893.

Currently, the discipline is most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words, and as a branch of semantics, and more narrowly ascribed as a subfield of lexical semantics, though sometimes referred to as a synonym of semantics. The exact meaning of the term is somewhat obscure, because according to some authors semasiology merged with semantics in modern times, while at the same time the term is still in use when defining onomasiology.