语义场是一组意义相关的词（或词素）。该短语也称为词场、词汇场、意义场和语义系统。语言学家阿德里安·莱勒（Adrienne Lehrer）更明确地将语义场定义为“覆盖某一概念领域并相互之间具有某种特定关系的一组词汇”（1985）。

实例和意见

主题通常是一个语义场的统一体。

"The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colors, foods, or kinship relations.... "Let's consider some examples of semantic fields....The field of 'stages of life' is arranged sequentially, though there is considerable overlap between terms (e.g., child, toddler) as well as some apparent gaps (e.g., there are no simple terms for the different stages of adulthood). Note that a term such as minor or juvenile belongs to a technical register, a term such as kid or tot to a colloquial register, and a term such as sexagenarian or octogenarian to a more formal register. The semantic field of 'water' could be divided into a number of subfields; in addition, there would appear to be a great deal of overlap between terms such as sound/fjord or cove/harbor/bay." (Laurel J. Brinton, "The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction." John Benjamins, 2000)

隐喻与语义场

语义字段有时也称为意义字段：

"Cultural attitudes to particular areas of human activity can often be seen in the choices of metaphor used when that activity is discussed. A useful linguistic concept to be aware of here is that of semantic field, sometimes called just field, or field of meaning.... "The semantic field of war and battle is one that sports writers often draw on. Sport, particularly football, in our culture is also associated with conflict and violence." (Ronald Carter, "Working With Texts: A Core Introduction to Language Analysis." Routledge, 2001)

语义域中标记越来越少的成员

颜色术语也有助于说明单词如何分组到语义字段中。

"In a semantic field, not all lexical items necessarily have the same status. Consider the following sets, which together form the semantic field of color terms (of course, there are other terms in the same field):

1. 蓝色，红色，黄色，绿色，黑色，紫色
2. 靛蓝、藏红花、皇家蓝、海蓝宝石、比斯克

The colors referred to by the words of set 1 are more 'usual' than those described in set 2. They are said to be less marked members of the semantic field than those of set 2. The less marked members of a semantic field are usually easier to learn and remember than more marked members. Children learn the term blue before they learn the terms indigo,, royal blue, or aquamarine. Often, a less marked word consists of only one morpheme, in contrast to more marked words (contrast blue with royal blue or aquamarine). The less marked member of a semantic field cannot be described by using the name of another member of the same field, whereas more marked members can be thus described (indigo is a kind of blue, but blue is not a kind of indigo). "Less marked terms also tend to be used more frequently than more marked terms; for example, blue occurs considerably more frequently in conversation and writing than indigo or aquamarine....Less marked terms are also often broader in meaning than more marked terms.... Finally, less marked words are not the result of the metaphorical usage of the name of another object or concept, whereas more marked words often are; for example, saffron is the color of a spice that lent its name to the color." (Edward Finegan. "Language: Its Structure and Use, 5th ed." Thomson Wadsworth, 2008)