In linguistics, semantic overload is a property of terms which have more than one meaning and are used in ways that convey a meaning which draws on its divergent constituent concepts. Semantic overload is related to the linguistic concept of polysemy. Overloading is related to the psychological concept of information overload, and the computer science concept of an overloaded expression. A term that is semantically overloaded is a kind of "overloaded expression" in language that causes a certain small degree of "information overload" in the receiving audience.
An example of this is the Basque word herri which can be translated as nation; country, land; people, population and town, village, settlement, amongst other things leading to difficulties in translating the indigenous term Euskal Herria. Another example is the term memory, especially as used in scholarship.
Expletives are also notable for this quality, and conversely this quality is also a contributor to why such terms may be regarded as crude or inappropriate.
The meanings associated with a word that is semantically overloaded have different qualities: those which are the reference of a word itself, and other meanings which are inferred from its use in different contexts.
Language planning
Minority languages which expand into new domains frequently suffer from semantic overloading by attempting to use existing terms to cover concepts for which the language has no terms readily available. One such example from Scottish Gaelic is the over-use of the word comhairle (originally "advice, counsel") for concepts such as "committee", "council" and "consultation" as exemplified by Donald MacAulay in dh'iarr a' chomhairle comhairle air a’ chomhairle chomhairleachaidh "the committee sought advice from the consultative council", resulting in a sentence which is opaque in meaning.