ABSTRACT
Word meaning and usage constitute arguably the most important and difficult aspect of vocabulary learning. The difficulty lies mainly in the fact that while many words have more than one meaning (a phenomenon called polysemy ), often several words may have essentially the same meaning (a phenomenon called synonymy ). Furthermore, some words have loaded connotations or special cultural meanings—words which Lado (1972, p. 286) calls “culturally-loaded.” Additionally, many words are register-specific, i.e., they are appropriate only for certain registers. Thus, polysemy, synonymy, culturally-loaded words, and register-appropriate use of words are very challenging issues in vocabulary learning and teaching (Laufer, 1997; Nation, 2001). This chapter attempts to address these issues, one by one.
