The terms "dwelling", "house" and "home" are synonymous.
The Latin term synonymĭa , coming from a Greek word, came to our language as synonymy . The notion refers to the characteristic shared by at least two words that are synonymous .
It should be remembered that synonyms are words that share a meaning : that is, they mean the same or something very similar. Synonymy, therefore, is a semantic link of similarity that two or more words develop from their meanings.
Terms that share a grammatical category have synonymy. For example: there is synonymy in “house” , “home” and “housing” since the three terms are synonymous and mean the same thing. You can say “Yesterday I met Lupe's house, it is very nice” , “Yesterday I met Lupe's home, it is very nice” or “Yesterday I met Lupe's house, it is very nice” interchangeably.
Types of synonymy
There are various types of synonymy. The idea is usually associated with conceptual synonymy (with terms that mean the same thing, such as the aforementioned example of “house” , “home” and “housing” ), but there is also contextual synonymy (it is only registered in a certain context), referential synonymy (the words refer to the same referent, although they do not mean exactly the same thing) and connotation synonymy (the meaning is subjective).
It is also possible to differentiate between total synonymy ( "house" / "home" / "dwelling" ) and partial synonymy ( "I have to pay the gas and electricity bills" , "I have to pay the gas and electricity bills" . the light" , "I'm going to buy bills for a snack" , "I'm going to buy croissants for a snack" : "bills" in one case is synonymous with "tickets" but not with "croissants" , and vice versa).
In "boleta", "invoice" and "medialuna" a partial synonymy is observed.
Some considerations
Total synonymy is the rarest of all classes, since languages have great semantic richness , which is why they do not limit themselves to assigning a single meaning to each word. More specifically, Spanish is a language that offers endless possibilities to combine and alternate various terms for literary purposes, playing with their meanings and nuances, so it is not so common to find two terms that always mean the same thing, regardless of the context. .
Depending on the point of view, conceptual synonymy can be the same as total synonymy, although in this case the possibility is also taken into account that in one region one of the synonymous terms is preferred, while the same does not occur in others. He speaks Spanish. In fact, it is also rare to find two words that meet this type of synonymy in Spain and all Latin American countries.
Partial, contextual and connotation synonymy
One of the most interesting types of synonymy is partial, which is mentioned above, since it allows us to take advantage of part of the meaning of a word to refer to another, although not all of them offer the same elements to understand the topic discussed. For example, two partial synonyms are "water" and "liquid"; However, if the main term being talked about is water, it is necessary to provide the interlocutor with this information so that he or she understands what "liquid" refers to.
Something similar occurs with contextual synonymy, as noted in the examples with the words "invoice", "ballot" and "medialuna", although in this case the difference in meaning depending on the context can be much greater than in the partial one.
On the other hand, the synonymy of connotation is perhaps one of the most used in everyday speech, although it is not always done consciously, since it consists of giving a word a subjective meaning. A clear example occurs when we say that "our neighbor is a harpy" or that "our work is a nightmare", since the terms "neighbor" and "work" are not synonymous with "harpy" and "nightmare" according to their definitions. formal.