When two or more meanings of a word have different dominances. For example, tin (type of metal) is used more often than tin (a small container).

Biased dominance

When  a word's meanings are equally likely ("dominant"). For example cast (a member of a show) is used equally as cast (used to heal a bone).

Balanced dominance

Some meanings for a word occur more frequently than others.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

A word can have multiple meanings. For example book can mean something to read or to schedule something like a hotel room.

Lexical ambiguity

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

A collection of utterances and written text that is compiled and estimates the frequency of which words are used (word frequency), the different meanings a words has (lexical ambiguity), and the grammatical constructions used.

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