lexical

"Lexical" describes anything connected to the words of a language: what they mean, how they are used, and how they help create meaning. A "lexical error" is usually not a grammar problem but a word-choice problem. If you are learning a new language, growing your vocabulary is a big part of becoming fluent. Linguists also talk about "lexical ambiguity" when one word has more than one meaning, which can cause confusion.

The term "lexical" comes from the Greek root lexis, meaning "word" or "speech," and it refers to things related to the words of a language. That includes the words themselves, their forms, their meanings, and the way they are used. It is an important idea in linguistics, computer science, especially natural language processing, and psychology.

You will see "lexical" most often in discussions about language. For example, lexical semantics is the study of word meaning, while lexical ambiguity refers to a word that has more than one meaning. For instance, "bank" can mean a financial institution or the side of a river. A lexical gap exists when a language does not have a single word for an idea that another language names clearly, such as the German word "schadenfreude."

In computer science, "lexical analysis" is the first phase of a compiler. It breaks source code into small units such as words, symbols, and other meaningful parts called tokens. In psychology, lexical access refers to how quickly we find words in our mental lexicon, or internal dictionary, when we speak or understand language.

So whenever you are talking about the vocabulary of a language, word meaning, word choice, or the way words are processed by people or machines, "lexical" is likely to appear. At heart, it is about the world of words and how they carry meaning.