Semanteme
From Hull AWE
Semanteme (also known to linguists as seme and sememe) is derived from the root of semantics and the suffix -eme. It therefore should mean "the smallest significant unit of meaning" - and it does.
- It is like phoneme and lexeme - respectively, the smallest sound (meaningful unit in studying the sounds of speech), and the smallest meaningful unit in studying how words are built up - word formation.
- In 1976, Richard Dawkins first applied the word meme in print to "a unit of cultural transmission". This seems a valuable idea, and word.
- Whatever you see on the internet,
semantimeis not an acceptable spelling - OED does not record it.
- Whatever you see on the internet,