lexeme

In linguistics, a lexeme is a fundamental unit of a language's vocabulary. It represents a word in its abstract sense, encompassing all its different forms. For example, "run," "runs," "ran," and "running" are all forms of the same lexeme.1

Lexemes are the building blocks of a language's lexicon, which is the complete set of words and meaningful units in that language. The study of words, their origins, meanings, and usage is called lexicology, while the practice of compiling dictionaries is known as lexicography. The term lexical relates to words or vocabulary, distinguishing them from grammar and sentence structure. Morphology, another area of linguistics, studies the internal structure of words and how they are formed from smaller units called morphemes.2345