in linguistics, a hyponym is a word that can be changed with a different and less precise word without changing the overall meaning of the phrase. the different word is its hyperonym, hypernym or superordinate term. hyponymy is a relation to a more generic word. a hyponym can be part of a group of words on a similar level that can all be replaced by the same hypernym. for example, "pigeon", "crow", "eagle" and "seagull" are all hyponyms (co-hyponyms) of "bird" (their hypernym). in turn, bird is a hyponym of "animal". in a sentence such as 'the pigeon is flying over the church.', it is possible to change the word pigeon to "bird" or "animal" without changing the overall meaning of the sentence. this is because "pigeon" is a hyponym of both "bird" and "animal".