linguistics - the scientific study of language

word - a unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning"

plural, plural form - the form of a word that is used to denote more than one

singular, singular form - the form of a word that is used to denote a singleton

ghost word - a word form that has entered the language through the perpetuation of an error

root word, stem, root, theme, radical, base - (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed; "thematic vowels are part of the stem"

etymon, root - a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes

citation form, entry word, main entry word - the form of a word that heads a lexical entry and is alphabetized in a dictionary

abbreviation - a shortened form of a word or phrase

acronym - a word formed from the initial letters of a multi-word name