Ambiguity arising from homonymy rather than from grammatical structure (as between brake ‘restrainer’ and brake ‘fence’, or well noun and well adverb); contr. with structural ambiguity.
Origin
1970s.
Definition of lexical ambiguity in US English:
lexical ambiguity
noun
Ambiguity arising from homonymy rather than from grammatical structure (as between brake ‘restrainer’ and brake ‘fence’, or well noun and well adverb); contr. with structural ambiguity.