Religionym (from la, religio / religion, and gr, ὄνομα / name) and confessionym (from la, confessio / confession, and gr, ὄνομα / name) are

polysemic Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...

terms, and

neologisms A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

, that have several distinctive meanings, generally related (from the Lexical semantics, semantic point of view) to religious (confessional) terminology, but are (in their specific meanings) defined and used differently among scholars. As a consequence of a wide variety of uses, specific meanings of those terms can be mutually distinctive, but also overlapping. Some scholars have used one or the other term as designations for a particular

onomastic Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...

class that encompasses the

proper names A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

of religions and cults (like: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam), while others have used the same terms (one or the other) as names for a particular

anthroponymic Anthroponymy (also anthroponymics or anthroponomastics, from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος ''anthrōpos'' / 'human', and ὄνομα ''onoma'' / 'name') is the study of ''anthroponyms'', the proper names of human beings, both individual and co ...

class, encompassing the

that designate religious adherents (like: Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims). In scholarly literature, both terms (religionym and confessionym) are sometimes also used in much broader meaning, as designations for all terms that are

semantically Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

related to religious (confessional) terminology. In the English-speaking world,

lexical corpus In linguistics, the term lexis (from grc, λέξις / word) designates the complete set of all possible words in a language, or a particular subset of words that are grouped by some specific linguistic criteria. For example, the general term ...

that encompasses various words, terms and expressions that are related to the religious sphere of life is most commonly referred to as ''religious lexis'', or ''religious lexicon''. Those linguistic terms cover all of those widest meanings that were occasionally assigned (by some authors) to the terms ''religionym'' and ''confessionym'', thus relieving them of such general uses, and consequently allowing the standardization of more specific uses for both of those terms. In recent years, several scholarly attempts were made in order to differentiate between the existing uses, and thus define the preferred meanings of those terms, but no general agreement has been reached among scholars, and the use of both terms continues to depend on the context given to them by individual authors, in accordance with their preferred terminological traditions. The problem of linguistic standardization of various

(like religionym and confessionym) is generally related to the wider question of proper formation and use of

terms. Such issues have gained importance in scholarly circles, since international surveys among experts revealed the existence of similar challenging issues, related to the process of terminological standardization within the field.

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend Onomastics Religion Definitions Neologisms

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