Semantic overload is related to the linguistic concept of polysemy.
Meanings associated with a semantically overloaded word have different qualities: those the word itself refers directly to, and other meanings inferred from its use in context.
[1] An example of this is the Basque word herri which can be translated as nation; country, land; people, population; and town, village, settlement,[2] amongst other things leading to difficulties in translating the indigenous term Euskal Herria.
[citation needed] Minority languages that spread into new domains frequently suffer from semantic overloading by attempting to adapt existing terms to cover new concepts.
One such example from Scottish Gaelic is the over-use of the word comhairle (originally "advice, counsel") for concepts such as committee, council, and consultation as exemplified by Donald MacAulay in dh'iarr a' chomhairle comhairle air a’ chomhairle chomhairleachaidh: "The committee sought advice from the consultative council"—a sentence that is opaque in meaning.