Illustrative Context

He held the stone in his hand.

Target Sense

• The most generic noun for a stone in the prototypical sense of the illustrative context above, of a size that can be held easily in the human hand, and that can be picked up and thrown without significant effort.
• As a generic term, the target lexeme will likely be applicable to stones of a range of sizes and forms, but must at least be the default term in the prototypical sense above, and in the illustrative context.
• In particular, avoid lexemes that stand in inherent contrast to the basic stone lexeme in a language, and serve to imply particularly large size, e.g. English rock, French rocher.
• Similarly, avoid lexemes that are hyponyms of the basic stone lexeme, in that they inherently imply any other narrower sense of particular size, form, etc., e.g. pebble, gemstone.
• The lexeme should be applicable to an individual stone, as in the illustrative context, and will therefore normally be a count noun, in the singular. Avoid mass nouns for collections of (small) stones, as a material, e.g. gravel.
• Many languages, like English, extend the same basic lexeme as the (non-count) term stone as a general material, e.g. made of stone. This is not necessarily a concern, but do not enter a term that is only or predominantly a non-count noun; where a default count noun exists, enter that instead. Only if the clear default term in a language is non-count, and referring to a single stone would require additional singulative morphology, should this non-count form be entered, as the most basic in that language.
• The target sense is the literal one of a physical stone as a naturally occurring, made of a rock-like substance, and that can be held in the hand. Avoid other terms that are predominantly extensions to figurative senses, e.g. of stone as symbolic of strength, durability, immovability, lack of emotion or compassion, etc.. Likewise, avoid narrower lexemes specific to other, non-literal meanings or English stone, such as kidney stone, the hard kernel of a fruit such as a peach, stones as markers (e.g. milestone), etc..
• Compare with the similar approach to considerations of size in the separate IE-CoR meanings stick, leaf, bird, river, lake, and forest.)