A lexeme (/ˈlɛksiːm/ ⓘ) is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection.
It is a basic abstract unit of meaning,[1] a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single root word.
Other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are uncommon or irregularly inflected.
The notion of the lexeme is central to morphology,[2] the basis for defining other concepts in that field.
In many formal theories of language, lexemes have subcategorization frames to account for the number and types of complements.