ETYM Latin lemma, Greek lemma anything received, an assumption or premise taken for granted, from lambanein to take, assume. Related to Syllable.
1. A subsidiary proposition that is assumed to be true in order to prove another proposition.
2. The head of an annotation or gloss.
3. The lower and stouter of the two glumes immediately enclosing the floret in most Gramineae; SYN. flowering glume.
Preliminary proposition, theme, argument or headword.
Logic, major premise; (argument or theme used as) the title of a composition; Lexicography, word considered as a headword, accompanied by all its inflected forms. Botany, flowering glume of grass.