Content Word (Noun)
Meaning
A word to which an independent meaning can be assigned.
Classification
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents.
Examples
- All cars have wheels is an example sentence where "cars" and "wheels" are content words as they have independent meanings.
- In the sentence "The big red house", "house" is a content word although "big" and "red" are also describing it to give more details.
- In the sentence "She ate a sandwich for lunch", "sandwich" is a content word because it can be assigned an independent meaning.
- In the sentence "Please pass the salt and pepper", both "salt" and "pepper" are content words because they have distinct meanings.
- Content words tend to comprise or include open-class words like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, which can be added to the language at any time.