Meronymy

Meronymy (from Greek μέρος meros, 'part' and ὄνομα onoma, 'name') is a semantic relation specific to linguistics, distinct from the similar metonymy. A meronym denotes a constituent part of, or a member of something.That is, Meronymy (from Greek μέρος meros, 'part' and ὄνομα onoma, 'name') is a semantic relation specific to linguistics, distinct from the similar metonymy. A meronym denotes a constituent part of, or a member of something.That is, For example, finger is a meronym of hand because a finger is part of a hand. Similarly, wheels is a meronym of automobile. Meronymy is the opposite of holonymy. A closely related concept is that of mereology, which specifically deals with part-whole relations and is used in logic. It is formally expressed in terms of first-order logic. A meronymy can also be considered a partial order. A meronym refers to a part of a whole. A word denoting a subset of what another word denotes is a hyponym. For example, a hyponym of tree is pine tree or oak tree ('a kind of tree'), but a meronym of tree is bark or leaf ('a part of a tree'). In knowledge representation languages, meronymy is often expressed as 'part-of'.