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Just curious but are there any two words (possibly three in a tri-relationship) in the English language that define themselves with the other, therefore being subjected to a definition paradox? (They have to have no other meanings besides the other word.)

e.g. (Not really a legit example, but what I am looking for) Compassion: The act of having pity. Pity: The act of having compassion.

merp
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  • Many such pairs. Good/bad, right/left, dead/living, etc. – John Lawler Jul 23 '14 at 19:01
  • I guess I was looking for an answer that gave you the following situation. You look up X in the dictionary and it directs you to Y so you look up Y in the dictionary and it directs you to X. – merp Jul 23 '14 at 19:06
  • Some may work though... – merp Jul 23 '14 at 19:07
  • That will depend very heavily on the dictionary, of course. – Matt Gutting Jul 23 '14 at 19:19
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    My closing this as a duplicate of that rather strange question might look strange in turn, but bear with me here and do go read the (excellent) answer there. Executive summary: "words do not derive their meanings from the definitions in dictionaries". So at best, your question is an excercise in finding a particular dictionary from a particular year that uses particular words to define particular other words, for reasons entirely unspecified unless you happen to personally know its editor. Which of course is rather pointless, as you will agree. – RegDwigнt Jul 23 '14 at 19:20
  • Most lexical words are 'defined' in terms of other words (though you may have an illustrated dictionary). And all words are infinitely polysemous. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 23 '14 at 19:23
  • @OhaxNuv: Right and left work that way. Fillmore describes the dictionary entries for left and right in his Deixis Lectures. BTW, the "answer" that was pointed to in closing is itself closed as "off-topic", which I take to mean that what's on or off topic is a bit unclear. – John Lawler Jul 23 '14 at 19:27
  • I actually think that is a prime example of an answer salvaging a question, to the point that we might wish to reopen it. Especially since we can see that it's a question that comes up regularly. In any case, it bears repeating that all dictionary definitions can't help being circular, and you just happen to look for circles of length X. Where X is a particular and yet random integer. Perhaps to put it even more clearly, you could construct a dictionary of your own in which the length of most, and with any luck indeed all, definitions is exactly X. – RegDwigнt Jul 23 '14 at 19:38
  • Ultimately, the chain of circularity in the reader's understanding is disrupted as soon as they encounter a description in the dictionary that corresponds to something they recognize in the real world. If that was not the case, then all dictionaries would be useless. – Erik Kowal Jul 23 '14 at 20:36

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