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Is there a word for a word which has only one meaning/use? It would be analogous to a prime number, i.e., indivisible. "Table" has several meanings. "Barometer" has its original meaning, and a figurative meaning as a gauge of anything. "Staple" has several meanings, whereas "stapler" may have only one.
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well, there are certainly adjectives which cover the concept. a word can be monosemous (as opposed to polysemous) or it can be univocal (as opposed to equivocal); come to think of it, I believe univocal is also used as a noun....
...I see the noun form of the former is monosemy, having a single meaning (absence of ambiguity) usually of individual words or phrases [dictionary.com]
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Someone would have to make a pretty strong case to convince me that any word didn't at least have the potential for multiple meanings in a language with such power for metaphor. You can assign levels of meaning to pretty much anything...
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oh dear... there are many words which only have one meaning, for which you would have to work pretty hard to exploit this potential. off the top of my head, all of those -phobia words that relate to the fear of something specific (claustrophobia, homophobia, ailurophobia, triskaidekaphobia, etc.); -ology words which apply to sciences or studies of specific things (geology, ontology, vexillology [flags], pogonology [beards], pesematology [falling objects], etc.); descriptive words that have been coined to fill specific perceived gaps in the language (loghorrea, swoophead, yesternight, etc.) -- the list could get pretty long.
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Just to throw a stone into the self-referential pond: monosemous itself should be the prime example of a monosemous word, because otherwise  ...
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Tsuwm, somewhere back in the mists of AWADtalk, there was a post about either: a word that describes words with one meaning, yet has more than one meaning of its own, OR, a word that describes words with several meanings, but only has one of its own. And I think that post was by you. But I can't remember the word. It wasn't monosemous or monosemy; I just did a search on those. Help?
Now--wsieber, I appreciated your oh-so-subtle parallel in using prime (think numbers) in reference to monosemous. Brilliant!
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well, as a matter of fact, the word was polysemous -- these are the terms used by linguists and lexicographers.
-joe friday
btw, I found this by searching on a phrase... the solution is left as an exercise for the student. (I've pencilled the answer in the margin, if you catch my meaning ;)
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I would be inclined to agree with tsuwm. I can think of plenty of technical terms having only one meaning, but I don't think that was quite what you were looking for. That kind of seems like cheating. I would be interested to find out how many "commonly used words" there are with only one meaning.
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Me ?Nah - everyone on the board thinks it means them, and that's a lot of meanings! 
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Doesn't this depend on your definition of what "is" is?
TEd
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I can think of plenty of technical terms having only one meaningI can even think of some that have none at all: if you read the marketing blurp on some high-tech gadgets  (anyone wants 4800 dpi prints?)
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Yes / No
Pretty much one meaning.
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Yes / No Pretty much one meaning. Having interacted with quite a number of women, I'm not sure that you are correct!
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Oh, Geoff. Now you're in for it.  Nice knowing ya...
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Hmmmmm, Geoff's bio....mechanic, Portland, Oregon
All right, that explains it then.
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Hi Ted, I like that one. It goes straight to the root of the matter. I think if meanings are considered identical only if the whole field that is covered by a word (extension) is fixed, then there are very few monosemous words. A therapist might consider a patient logorrheic while the patient himself feels perfectly normal . A truly polysemous word should be one which has several extension fields that are unconnected among themselves.
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Hmmmmm, Geoff's bio....mechanic, Portland, Oregon
All right, that explains it then.
So, which part explains it, the location or the employment? Notice I didn't say, "vocation," which would have been much more mellifluously alitterative, but it's the best I can do under the circumstances (Only have half a brain).
Nevertheless, your "explanation" suggests a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
I really do believe that most any word - even yes or no - can differ in its implications depending on gender. Any of you out there know of research supporting this?
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Geoff, the quantum mechanic, inquires: Any of you out there know of research supporting this? Well..... can't cite any scientific studies, but I know *some women who often use "yes" to mean "no" as in "Sure, I'd just love to go to the hockey game with you..." and "no" to mean "yes" as in, "Ahhh... you shouldn't have!" or "Don't go to any trouble" or  in other situations that are not appropriate to this venerable forum.
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Sweet Geoff, no matter your vocation, location, or concatenation, you're the most quantum mechanic I know! (Thanks, Anna, for that lovely allusion!) Hey, Anna, wanna come up here an' go to a hockey game some time??
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Don't quite agree AnnaS.
Historically, women were taught that is was <unladylike> to be too forceful or too straightforward. The fact that *yes* and *no* have only one meaning forces many women to use longer phrases or to avoid having to say them at all.
Take, for example, a woman who gets invited to a Tupperware party but does not want to go. More often than not she will try to come up with any excuse possible (I have a doctor’s appointment on that day, my sister is in town, my son has a recital that morning, bridge night, poker night, diddle night…) on and on, instead of just saying no. The word no is so unwaveringly clear-cut that she just can’t say it. It sounds too blunt, therefore unladylike and consequently impolite. Take out your chequebook cause you know you’re buyin’ plastic pots.
A straight out yes can be just as hard to say for a lot of women. “do you want the last chocolate éclair?” I shouldn’t. I couldn’t possibly. Well, you ain’t getting it. The guy beside you will take it because he believes you have just said no, and he said, well, yes.
I don’t think that a woman saying *yes* and *no* interchangeably while enjoying a bit of playful nooky is applicable to this conversation. The words in that situation are not meant to be real. It is also not said on the same tone. She could say “mononucleosis” and it would have the same meaning and impact.
We won’t get into the real Yes / No of sexual contact here as that is usually a debate as heated as politics and religion.
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Just joshing with you Geoff. Olive branch.
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes". As an incentive to get my youngest daughter to say "yes" I would ask her if she wanted some ice cream. If she did not say "yes" I would start to put it away. For several weeks the closest she could come to saying "yes" was to say "nnno" softly with a tragic look. But I then would ask her "Shall I put it away" Then the "no" was emphatic, and she got her ice cream.
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In reply to:
Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
Because that's what they hear more often?
Bingley
Bingley
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belM demurs: Don't quite agree AnnaS. Help this old lady out. Sounds like you do agree by supplying more examples! Now, as for that term "nooky": apparently it's OK to say in Canada but around here it's pretty obscene. Ah, the nuances.
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Hey, Anna, wanna come up here an' go to a hockey game some time??[taking-deep-breath emoticon] Er... NO , thank you, Jackie! (but I wouldn't mind seeing your baseball bats)
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>Now, as for that term "nooky": apparently it's OK to say in Canada but around here it's pretty obscene. Ah, the nuances
Really? I didn't know. It's always amazing that a word can be so tame in one area and extreme in an other. You ofter hear things like this when words are translated into other languages but it surprises me when the language is the same.
I am pretty sure I have heard the word on U.S. television. Do you think it is a regional thing?
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
No is a much more forceful word than yes. No lets you impose your will and that's a heady feeling at the age when a child is beginning to handle speech. Yes is a word of acquiescence and the child has had enough of that.
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
Because that's what they hear more often?
I think it has to do with the complexity of the word. (Linguistics specialists - HELP!) While NO isn't quite a simple plosive, it's far less complex than the glide/mouth shape change/fricative needed for YES. So, both neural and anatomical development must be a factor in what sounds an infant first makes. (You physicians, please hop in here!)
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journeyman
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Now, as for that term "nooky": apparently it's OK to say in Canada but around here it's pretty obscene. Ah, the nuances Indeed. I wonder if the rapper who used that word repeatedly in one of his songs would be disappointed to find out in Canada he sounded tame. Ali
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veteran
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nookie & diddle
Don't know about down south, Anna, but around here no one but a deacon's wife would consider "nookie" really obsecene; it's a sort of comic word.
On the other hand, I made a spectacle of myself laughing out loud in the office over Bel's marvelous term "diddle night". As soon as I get home, I shall rush into the kitchen, where the calendar lives, and write it in for a number of dates in March.
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newbie
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One word that is constantly misused and is unique is .............."unique".
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Welcome, Kupatchka. Yes, I suspect many of us may share this irritation sometimes. Try Atomica look-up though, for a sensitive context piece ('Usage Note'). Now when you say "constantly"....
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