lemma

plural lemmas · plural lemmata

1. mathematicsA proposition proved or accepted for immediate use in the proof of some other proposition.

   "We finally did it, but we found the proof very, very hard," he [Dr. John Conway] said. "I remember my wife and I spending one entire afternoon just working on some tiny little lemmas involved in the proof."

   1988 August 30, Malcolm W. Browne, “Intellectual Duel: Brash Challenge, Swift Response”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 23 Apr 2023

   1. broadlymathematicsA proposition originally used for such a purpose, but having later acquired a greater, independent, importance; a fundamental (often pithy) and widely-used result.
2. human sciencesThe canonical form of an inflected word; i.e., the form usually found as the headword in a dictionary, such as the nominative singular of a noun, the bare infinitive of a verb, etc.

   Cat is a lemma, but cats is not.

   3 more examples

   Holonym: lexeme (holonymous sense)

   For the second sense, where "word" means "item that should have its own dictionary entry," lexicographers sometimes use the term "lemma," but that has other meanings too, so among linguists the term lexeme is now standard, and I'll use it. For the different forms or shapes that belong to a lexeme we can use the term word-form.

   2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 17

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:lemma.

   Synonyms: lexeme

3. human sciencesThe theoretical abstract conceptual form of a word, representing a specific meaning, before the creation of a specific phonological form as the sounds of a lexeme, which may find representation in a specific written form as a dictionary or lexicographic word.

plural lemmas · plural lemmata

1. biologyThe outer shell of a fruit or similar body.
2. biologyOne of the specialized bracts around the floret in grasses.

1. rareA female given name.