Dictionaries › English

dialect

Pronunciation: /ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/

The English word “dialect” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A lect (often a regional or minority language) as part of a group or family of languages, especially if they are viewed as a single language, or if contrasted with a standardized idiom that is considered the 'true' form of the language (for example, Bavarian as contrasted with Standard German).
  2. A variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular area, community, or social group, differing from other varieties of the same language in relatively minor ways as regards grammar, phonology, and lexicon.
  3. Language that is perceived as substandard or wrong.
  4. A language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language spoken in a developing country or an isolated region.
  5. A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
  6. A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or population.

Etymology

From Middle French dialecte, from Latin dialectos, dialectus, from Ancient Greek διάλεκτος (diálektos, “conversation, the language of a country or a place or a nation, the local idiom which derives from a dominant language”), from διαλέγομαι (dialégomai, “to participate in a dialogue”), from διά (diá, “inter, through”) + λέγω (légō, “to speak”); by surface analysis, dia- + -lect.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “dialect” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.