language – Wiktionary

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• enPR: lăngʹgwĭj, IPA^(key): /ˈlæŋɡwɪd͡ʒ/
• Hyphenation: lan‧guage

Etymology 1[edit]

From Center English langage, language, from Outdated French language, from Vulgar Latin *linguāticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Outdated Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Outdated English ġeþēode.

Noun[edit]

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

Examples
The English Wiktionary makes use of the English language to outline phrases from the entire world’s languages. This particular person is saying “hey” in American signal language.

1. (countable) A physique of phrases, and set of strategies of mixing them (referred to as a grammar), understood by a neighborhood and used as a type of communication.

   The English language and the German language are associated.

   Deaf and mute individuals talk utilizing languages like ASL.

   • 1867, Report on the Methods of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in Historical past of the Faculty for the Deaf, 1857-1907 →ISBN, web page 240:

     Therefore the pure language of the mute is, in faculties of this class, suppressed as quickly and so far as attainable, and its existence as a language, able to being made the dependable and exact car for the widest vary of thought, is ignored.

   • 2000, Geary Hobson, The Final of the Ofos, →ISBN, web page 113:

     Mr. Darko, usually acknowledged to be the final surviving member of the Ofo Tribe, was additionally the final remaining speaker of the tribe’s language.

2. (uncountable) The flexibility to speak utilizing phrases.

   the reward of language

3. (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a selected neighborhood or jargon of a selected specialist subject.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who’s Edmund Grey?”, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:

     Thus, when he drew up directions in lawyer language, he expressed the vital phrases by an preliminary, a medial, or a closing consonant, and made scratches for all of the phrases between; his clerks, nevertheless, understood him very effectively.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:

     And ‘blubbing’… Blubbing went out with ‘respectable’ and ‘ripping’. Thoughts you, not a nasty new language to begin up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could possibly be due for a revival.

   authorized language;   the language of chemistry

4. (countable, uncountable, figuratively) The expression of thought (the communication of that means) in a specified approach; that which communicates one thing, as language does.

   physique language;   the language of the eyes

   • 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Changing into a Counselor →ISBN:

     A story about themselves [is] informed by individuals with assist from the common languages of their eyes, their palms, and even their shirting toes.

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Large Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, web page 231:

     Birding had turn out to be like that for me. It’s a language that, as soon as learnt, I’ve been unable to unlearn.

5. (countable, uncountable) A physique of sounds, indicators and/or indicators by which animals talk, and by which crops are typically additionally thought to speak.
   • 1983, The Listener, quantity 110, web page 14:

     A extra possible speculation was that the attacked leaves have been transmitting some airborne chemical sign to sound the alarm, somewhat like bugs sending out warnings […] However that is the primary time {that a} plant-to-plant language has been detected.

   • 2009, Animals in Translation, web page 274:

     Prairie canine use their language to check with actual risks in the true world, so it positively has that means.

6. (computing, countable) A pc language; a machine language.
   • 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages →ISBN, web page 94

     Actually pointers are referred to as references in these languages to differentiate them from pointers in languages like C and C++.

7. (uncountable) Method of expression.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Hope

     Their language easy, as their manners meek, […]

8. (uncountable) The actual phrases utilized in a speech or a passage of textual content.

   The language used within the regulation doesn’t allow some other interpretation.

   The language he used to speak to me was obscene.

9. (uncountable) Profanity.
   • 1978, James Carroll, Mortal Buddies, →ISBN, web page 500:

     “The place the hell is Horace?” ¶ “There he’s. He is coming. You should not use language.”

Synonyms[edit]

Hypernyms[edit]

Hyponyms[edit]

Derived phrases[edit]

Associated phrases[edit]

Translations[edit]

See language/translations § Noun.

Verb[edit]

language (third-person singular easy current languages, current participle languaging, easy previous and previous participle languaged)

1. (uncommon, now nonstandard or technical) To speak by language; to specific in language.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, Church-Historical past of Britain

     Others have been languaged in such uncertain expressions that they’ve a double sense.

See additionally[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

Alteration of languet.

Noun[edit]

language (plural languages)

1. A languet, a flat plate in or under the flue pipe of an organ.
   • 1896, William Horatio Clarke, The Organist’s Retrospect, web page 79:

     A flue-pipe is one wherein the air passes by means of the throat, or flue, which is the slim, longitudinal aperture between the decrease lip and the tongue, or language. […] The language is adjusted by barely elevating or miserable it, […]

References[edit]

• language at OneLook Dictionary Search
• language in Key phrases for As we speak: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Key phrases Venture, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• language in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911.

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Noun[edit]

language m (plural languages)

1. Archaic spelling of langage.

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Center English[edit]

Noun[edit]

language (plural languages)

1. Various type of langage

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Center French[edit]

Various types[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Outdated French language.

Noun[edit]

language m (plural languages)

1. language (type of speaking)

Associated phrases[edit]

Descendants[edit]

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Outdated French[edit]

Various types[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Vulgar Latin *linguāticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

language f (indirect plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)

1. language (type of speaking)

Associated phrases[edit]

Descendants[edit]