For example “oxymoron” is an oxymoron (since it comes from the greek words “Oxy” meaning sharp and “moron” meaning blunt. “Tautology” is a tautology (“Something which is true is true”). etc.
Is there a word to describe words that fit their own definition? For that matter are there related words for ones that don’t?
I thought it would be something like that. Thanks.
As an adjective for such words you can say self-referential. One of my favorite self-referential words, IIRC, comes up in Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach–“awkwardnessfull”.
My favorite example is sesquipedalian.
My second favorite example is anapest.
Onomatopoeia might also fit this description - words like “bang” and “woof” where the word is also the sound associated with the word.
That would be a hyponym of what I was after, yes.
I thought that the term “homological” described a word that was true of itself and the term “heterological” described a word that was not true of itself.
For example, the word “short” is homological whereas the word “monosyllabic” is heterological.
Here’s a fun question: Is the word “heterological” homological or heterological?