LANGUAGES

Noun

languages

plural of language

Verb

languages

Third-person singular simple present indicative form of language

Anagrams

• slanguage

Source: Wiktionary


LANGUAGE

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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Word of the Day

16 May 2024

INDEXATION

(noun) a system of economic regulation: wages and interest are tied to the cost-of-living index in order to reduce the effects of inflation


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Coffee Trivia

The first coffee-house in Mecca dates back to the 1510s. The beverage was in Turkey by the 1530s. It appeared in Europe circa 1515-1519 and was introduced to England by 1650. By 1675 the country had more than 3,000 coffee houses, and coffee had replaced beer as a breakfast drink.

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