a minimum unit of meaning in terms of which it is sometimes proposed that meaning in general might be analysed
Word origin
C20 (coined in 1933 by Leonard Bloomfield (1887–1949), US linguist): from Greek sēma a sign + -eme
semanteme in American English
(sɪˈmæntim)
noun
Linguistics
one of the minimum elements of lexical meaning in a language
Word origin
[1920–25; ‹ F semantème, equiv. to sémant(ique) semantic + -ème-eme]This word is first recorded in the period 1920–25. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: audio, fundamentalism, montage, slalom, superpower-eme is a suffix used principally in linguistics to form nouns with the sense “significantcontrastive unit,” at the level of language specified by the stem. Other words thatuse the affix -eme include: morpheme, tagmeme