Aspects of a communication whose interpretation depends on knowledge of the context in which the communication occurs

• The function of pointing or specifying from the perspective of a participant in an act of speech or writing

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1949, from Greek deixis "reference." Related: Deictic .

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (context linguistics English) A reference within a sentence that relies on the context being known to interpret correctly.

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
deixis \deixis\ (d[imac]k"s[i^]s), n. (Grammar) the function or operation of a deictic word; the function of pointing or specifying from the perspective of a participant in an act of speech or writing; aspects of a communication whose interpretation depends ...

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
In linguistics , deixis refers to words and phrases, such as “me” or “here”, that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information -- in this case, the identity of the speaker (“me”) and the speaker's location (“here”). Words are deictic ...

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
n. the function of pointing or specifying from the perspective of a participant in an act of speech or writing; aspects of a communication whose interpretation depends on knowledge of the context in which the communication occurs