Hypo- in Greek means "under"
and -onym means "name"
so a hyponym is an "under name."
is-a shows a semantic relationship.
"X" is-a "Z" and "Y" is-a "Z"
"X" and "Y" are hyponyms of "Z."
= The meaning X and Y is included in the meaning of Z.
Here are some examples:
{ABC...XYZ} and {abc...xyz} are all letters, so {ABC...XYZ} and {abc...xyz} are hyponyms of "letter." Capital letters and lower-case letters, vowel letters and consonant letters are all letters, and none of them is more important than any other letters, so they are all drawn with the same shapes and arranged in a circle:
 |
| Hyponyms--Letters |
Mothers and fathers are parents. So are grandmothers and grandfathers, stepmothers and stepfathers. However, the words "mother" and "father" are closer to the typical, everyday meaning of "parent," so I didn't use the same shapes for all of these words.
In the picture below, octagons (= 8-sided figures) are closest in shape to circles, so these shapes represent "mother" and "father." Triangles (= 3-sided figures) are much farther away from the typical, everyday meaning of "parent," so they represent the words for stepparents.
Here, we are dealing with a hierarchy (= some words are more important than others). Drawing different shapes and placing them closer or farther away from the general word ("parent") helps us understand that this is a hierarchy of meaning (= some words are closer/farther in meaning than others).
 |
| Hyponyms--Parents |
