LANGUAGE

language, speech

(noun) the mental faculty or power of vocal communication; “language sets homo sapiens apart from all other animals”

language, linguistic communication

(noun) a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols; “he taught foreign languages”; “the language introduced is standard throughout the text”; “the speed with which a program can be executed depends on the language in which it is written”

terminology, nomenclature, language

(noun) a system of words used to name things in a particular discipline; “legal terminology”; “biological nomenclature”; “the language of sociology”

lyric, words, language

(noun) the text of a popular song or musical-comedy number; “his compositions always started with the lyrics”; “he wrote both words and music”; “the song uses colloquial language”

speech, speech communication, spoken communication, spoken language, language, voice communication, oral communication

(noun) (language) communication by word of mouth; “his speech was garbled”; “he uttered harsh language”; “he recorded the spoken language of the streets”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology 1

Noun

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

(countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.

(uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.

(uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.

(countable, uncountable, figurative) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.

(countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.

(computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.

(uncountable) Manner of expression.

(uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.

(uncountable) Profanity.

Synonyms

• (form of communication): see language

• (vocabulary of a particular field): see jargon

• (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language

• (particular words used): see wording

Hypernyms

• medium

Hyponyms

• See

(linguistics: Hyponyms of language (kinds)):

• artificial language

• auxiliary language

• bad language

• body language

• common language

• computer/computing language

• constructed language

• dead language

• endangered language

• engineered language

• everyday language

• experimental language

• extinct language

• foreign language

• formal language

• foul language

• global language

• hardware description language

• indigenous language

• international language

• link language

• literary language

• living language

• logical language

• machine language

• meta language

• main language

• mathematical language

• metaphorical language

• minority language

• modern language

• multi-paradigm language

• natural language

• object language

• pattern language

• philosophical language

• phonetic language

• planned language

• principal language

• private language

• programming language

• scripting language

• secular language

• sign language

• spoken language

• standard language

• subject-oriented language

• target language

• universal language

• vehicular language

• vernacular language

• working language

• world language

(linguistics: Hyponyms of language (types)):

• active-stative language

• agglutinative language

• analytic language

• direct-inverse language

• E-language

• ergative-absolutive language

• I-language

• isolating language

• nominative-accusative language

• oligosynthetic language

• OV language

• polysynthetic language

• synthetic language

• tripartite language

• VO language

Verb

language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)

(rare, now, nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.

Etymology 2

Noun

language (plural languages)

A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.

Source: Wiktionary

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Lan"guage, n. Etym: [OE. langage, F. langage, fr. L. lingua the tongue, hence speech, language; akin to E. tongue. See Tongue, cf. Lingual.]

1. Any means of conveying or communicating ideas; specifically, human speech; the expression of ideas by the voice; sounds, expressive of thought, articulated by the organs of the throat and mouth.

Note: Language consists in the oral utterance of sounds which usage has made the representatives of ideas. When two or more persons customarily annex the same sounds to the same ideas, the expression of these sounds by one person communicates his ideas to another. This is the primary sense of language, the use of which is to communicate the thoughts of one person to another through the organs of hearing. Articulate sounds are represented to the eye by letters, marks, or characters, which form words.

2. The expression of ideas by writing, or any other instrumentality.

3. The forms of speech, or the methods of expressing ideas, peculiar to a particular nation.

4. The characteristic mode of arranging words, peculiar to an individual speaker or writer; manner of expression; style. Others for language all their care express. Pope.

5. The inarticulate sounds by which animals inferior to man express their feelings or their wants.

6. The suggestion, by objects, actions, or conditions, of ideas associated therewith; as, the language of flowers. There was . . . language in their very gesture. Shak.

7. The vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or department of knowledge; as, medical language; the language of chemistry or theology.

8. A race, as distinguished by its speech. [R.] All the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image. Dan. iii. 7. Language master, a teacher of languages.[Obs.]

Syn.

– Speech; tongue; idiom; dialect; phraseology; diction; discourse; conversation; talk.

– Language, Speech, Tongue, Idiom, Dialect. Language is generic, denoting, in its most extended use, any mode of conveying ideas; speech is the language of articulate sounds; tongue is the Anglo- Saxon tern for language, esp. for spoken language; as, the English tongue. Idiom denotes the forms of construction peculiar to a particular language; dialects are varieties if expression which spring up in different parts of a country among people speaking substantially the same language.

Lan"guage, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Languaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Languaging.]

Definition: To communicate by language; to express in language. Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense. Fuller.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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