ABSTRACT
Linguistics.—Since Nicolas Beauzée in the eighteenth century, a distinction has been made in French semantics between sens (sense) and signification (meaning) (→MEANING AND SIGNIFICATION, SEMANTICS), although usage varies and some authors interchange the two words. In English linguistics, the sense/meaning distinction is not clear cut either, especially since meaning refers to various forms of intentionality (→INTENTIONALITY). In addition, sense is often used in English to speak of the conceptual meaning or core meaning of a word.
