function word

1. 1.

   a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning

   Synonymsclosed-class word

   Broaderword

   Narrowerdeterminerprepositionpronounconjunctionparticle

   Partsgrammatical meaning

Questions about function word

What does function word mean?

function word means "a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning".

What is another word for function word?

Close synonyms include closed-class word. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is function word a common word?

function word is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.