The book is an inquiry into the meaning of the English lexical item 'earth' (as well as semantically related words such as 'soil', 'land', 'ground' etc.) understood as the totality of its senses within the relevant conceptual domain (EARTH). This follows Ronald Langacker's conception of a network model (a part of his Cognitive Grammar), which in the book is complemented with Catherine Fuchs's idea of semantic space. Word meaning, thus, is seen as a conceptual and dynamic entity resulting from three interdependent factors: (1) its semantic potential (i.e. the whole conceptual domain it may potentially evoke); (2) its relationship with sematically related words; and (3) its contextual modifications. Because of this dynamicity, word meaning "arises" in texts and can only be specified with some approximation, in terms of intra- and intercategorial tensions, rather than being fixed and stable. A number of contexts are analyzed in order to show how the meaning of 'earth' arises and fluctuates in certain areas within the conceptual domain EARTH and the conceptual-semantic space at large. ordering information: http://press.umcs.lublin.pl this is only in Polish: click the image, then OFERTA WYDAWNICZA, then SZUKAJ ('search') and type in either Glaz in 'Autora' field or the title in the 'Tytul' field') or: Marketing Department of the publisher: tel./fax: +48 81 537 53 02 (fax in English should work) (or contact the author in case of difficulty: adam.glaz@umcs.lublin.pl)