C1 — advancedLexical relations and competence

Words with many meanings

Lesson opening

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Words with many meanings: literal and figurative

Look up a common word and you rarely find one translation, but a numbered list: 1, 2, 3, sometimes 4 and 5. Nearly every frequent word works like this: a language does not coin a new word for each new idea, it stretches one it already has. This lesson is about how meanings grow out of one another, why the growth follows a handful of recurring patterns, how those patterns let you guess a meaning you were never taught, and how to pick the right meaning from the context and from a dictionary.

Definition

Take glava: a head, a head of onion, the head of a family, the head of state, and a “head” in statistics (po glavi stanovnika “per head of population”, per capita). These are several related meanings of one word, and they are not a random heap. One of them is literal (the basic sense, the one that comes to mind first); the others are figurative, grown out of the literal one along a line of thought you can follow.

There are only two such moves. A name moves by likeness: a head of onion is shaped like a head. Or it moves by closeness, because two things go together in real life: Popio je čašu “he drank a glass” means he drank what was in the glass, not the glass itself.

The key point for you: the transfers repeat in patterns. If “body part → part of an object” worked for glava, it will work for noga, grlo and zub. Such shifts are predictable, and that turns the dictionary into a system: you don't memorise the second meaning, you work it out. English runs on the same patterns (the leg of a table, a sharp remark), which gives you a head start.

A body part becomes part of a thing

The oldest and most generous pattern. People describe the world after their own image, so things acquire heads, legs, throats and teeth. English does it too, and most Serbian cases can be guessed.

Examples

Word	Literal meaning	Figurative meanings
glava	head	glava luka, glavica luka a head of onion, glava porodice the head of the family, glava države the head of state, po glavi stanovnika per head of population
noga	leg, foot	noga stola a table leg, noga stolice a chair leg
grlo	throat	grlić boce the neck of a bottle, usko grlo a bottleneck (at work, on the road)
zub	tooth	zubac a cog, a tooth of a saw, zupčanik a gear wheel, zub vremena the ravages of time (literally “the tooth of time”)
krilo	wing	krilo zgrade the wing of a building, desno krilo stranke the right wing of a party, u krilu in someone's lap

The same move works with srce “heart”: u srcu grada “in the heart of the city”, in the centre. From ruka “arm, hand” comes rukav: both the sleeve of a shirt and an arm of a river. Watch krilo: the sense “the lap of a seated person” has no parallel in English wing, yet in Serbian it is everyday. And where English sees a bottle's neck, Serbian sees its throat: usko grlo.

The tangible becomes abstract

The second big pattern: words for weight, size, temperature and taste move on to feelings, judgements and circumstances. Here Serbian and English agree remarkably often, since the images are universal: guess boldly.

Examples

Word	Literally	Figuratively
težak	heavy: težak kofer a heavy suitcase	difficult: težak ispit a hard exam, težak dan a hard day; serious, heavy: teški bolesnik a seriously ill patient, teška hrana heavy food
visok	tall, high: visok čovek a tall man	visoka cena a high price, visoka temperatura a high temperature, visoko obrazovanje higher education
dubok	deep: duboka voda deep water	dubok san a deep sleep, duboka starost a great old age, duboka kriza a deep crisis
oštar	sharp: oštar nož a sharp knife	oštra krivina a sharp bend, oštra kritika sharp criticism, oštar ton a sharp tone
sladak	sweet: sladak kolač a sweet cake	cute, lovely: slatka beba a sweet baby, Baš si sladak. You're so sweet.
čist	clean: čista soba a clean room	čista istina the plain truth, čist račun square dealings

Verbs of falling and growing behave the same way: pasti is both “to fall” and “to fail (an exam)”; rasti is both “to grow” and, of prices and tension, “to rise”. Nouns do it too: korak is a step of the foot and a step you take (prvi korak “the first step”, korak po korak “step by step”), and teret is both a load and a burden (biti nekome na teretu “to be a burden to someone”). And put “road” has grown a sense you would not guess, “time, occasion”; its dictionary entry comes below.

Space becomes time

The third pattern is so familiar that nobody notices it: we talk about time in words for space. Time is “long”, events lie “ahead” or “behind”. Serbian uses this pattern as readily as English but shares it out among its words differently, and this is where English speakers easily slip.

Cheat sheet

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Words with many meanings: in brief

One word, several related meanings: the literal one (first in the entry) + figurative ones. They move by likeness (glava luka) or by closeness (Popio je čašu). Homonyms: unrelated meanings, two entries: luk onion / arc, dug long / debt.

Four patterns

Pattern	Examples
Body → object	glava luka head of onion, glava porodice/države, po glavi stanovnika per capita; noga stola table leg; grlić boce bottle neck, usko grlo bottleneck; zubac cog, zupčanik gear; krilo zgrade/stranke wing, u krilu in the lap; u srcu grada in the centre; rukav sleeve, arm of a river
Tangible → abstract	težak kofer → težak ispit, teški bolesnik; visoka cena/temperatura, visoko obrazovanje higher education; dubok san, duboka kriza; oštra krivina/kritika; slatka beba cute; čista istina; pasti na ispitu fail, cene rastu prices rise; prvi korak, biti nekome na teretu be a burden
Space → time	dug put → dug razgovor; kratak hodnik → kratak sastanak; pred kućom → pred kraj godine towards the end of the year; za stolom → za sat in an hour; kroz prozor → kroz nedelju dana in a week; blizu stanice → Nova godina je blizu; proći pored → Prošla je godina
By closeness	container → contents: Popio je dve čaše; place → people: Cela sala je aplaudirala, Beograd i Brisel; author → work: Čitam Andrića; material → award: Osvojila je zlato; action → place: izlaz, ulaz, prelaz; strana side, page

vreme = time, weather (Kakvo je vreme?, vremenska prognoza), verb tense. struja = river current, electricity, a movement in art.

What picks the meaning

Neighbour: oštar nož literal, oštra kritika figurative.
Preposition and case: Mislim na tebe on my mind (I miss you: Nedostaješ mi), Šta misliš o filmu? opinion.
Number: godina year, Koliko imaš godina? age.
Common sense: absurd literally → figurative.
Faded image (noga stola, ključna reč): translate directly.

Register

Word	Literal	Figurative
car	emperor	colloq.: a legend, Ti si car!
majstor	craftsman	colloq. praise: Svaka čast, majstore!
zvezda	star	neutral: filmska zvezda
seljak	peasant	disparaging: yokel
riba, pauk	fish, spider	slang: a girl (crude), a tow truck
strašno, ludo	terribly, madly	colloq. boosters: strašno lepo, Bilo je ludo!

The dictionary entry

Literal sense first, figurative after; the one you need may be third: put 1. road, 2. trip, 3. time (prvi put for the first time). Labels (printed in Cyrillic): fig. figurative, razg. colloquial, zast. dated, pokr. regional, pej. disparaging. Steps: literal sense → read to the end → check case and preposition → examples → label. From English into Serbian: recheck in a monolingual dictionary.