Adjacent Words

Vernacular definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

VERNAC'ULAR, a. [L. vernaculus, born in one's house, from verns, a servant.]
1. Native; belonging to the country of one's birth. English is our vernacular language. The vernacular idiom is seldom perfectly acquired by foreigners.
2. Native; belonging to the person by birth or nature.
A vernacular disease, is one which prevails in a particular country or district; more generally called endemic.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language; "common parlance"; "a vernacular term"; "vernacular speakers"; "the vulgar tongue of the masses"; "the technical and vulgar names for an animal species" [syn: common, vernacular, vulgar] n
1: a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves); "they don't speak our lingo" [syn: slang, cant, jargon, lingo, argot, patois, vernacular]
2: the everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language)

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: Latin vernaculus native, from verna slave born in the master's house, native Date: 1601 1. a. using a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured, or foreign language b. of, relating to, or being a nonstandard language or dialect of a place, region, or country c. of, relating to, or being the normal spoken form of a language 2. applied to a plant or animal in the common native speech as distinguished from the Latin nomenclature of scientific classification <the vernacular name> 3. of, relating to, or characteristic of a period, place, or group; especially of, relating to, or being the common building style of a period or place <vernacular architecture> • vernacularly adverb II. noun Date: 1661 1. a vernacular language, expression, or mode of expression 2. the mode of expression of a group or class 3. a vernacular name of a plant or animal

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & adj. --n. 1 the language or dialect of a particular country (Latin gave place to the vernacular). 2 the language of a particular clan or group. 3 homely speech. --adj. 1 (of language) of one's native country; not of foreign origin or of learned formation. 2 (of architecture) concerned with ordinary rather than monumental buildings. Derivatives: vernacularism n. vernacularity n. vernacularize v.tr. (also -ise). vernacularly adv. Etymology: L vernaculus domestic, native f. verna home-born slave

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vernacular Ver*nac"u*lar, n. The vernacular language; one's mother tongue; often, the common forms of expression in a particular locality.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vernacular Ver*nac"u*lar, a. [L. vernaculus born in one's house, native, fr. verna a slave born in his master's house, a native, probably akin to Skr. vas to dwell, E. was.] Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or nature; native; indigenous; -- now used chiefly of language; as, English is our vernacular language. ``A vernacular disease.'' --Harvey. His skill the vernacular dialect of the Celtic tongue. --Fuller. Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted. --Pope.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(vernaculars) The vernacular is the language or dialect that is most widely spoken by ordinary people in a region or country. ...books or plays written in the vernacular... N-COUNT: usu the N in sing

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. a. Native, indigenous, mother, vulgar. II. n. Vernacular language, native language, mother tongue.

Moby Thesaurus

Babbittish, Philistine, aboriginal, accustomed, ancient language, argot, austerity, autochthonous, average, baldness, bareness, bourgeois, campy, candor, cant, classical language, colloquial, colloquial speech, colloquial usage, colloquialism, common, common speech, commonplace, confined, conventional, conversational, conversationalism, current, customary, dead language, directness, easy, endemic, everyday, familiar, frankness, general, geographically limited, gibberish, gobbledygook, habitual, high-camp, homebred, homegrown, homely, homespun, household, household words, idiom, illiterate speech, indigenous, informal, informal English, informal language, informal speech, insular, jargon, kitschy, language, leanness, limited, lingo, living language, local, localized, low-camp, matter-of-factness, mother tongue, mumbo jumbo, natal, native, native language, native speech, native tongue, native-born, naturalness, nonstandard, normative, of a place, openness, ordinary, original, parent language, parochial, patois, patter, phraseology, plain, plain English, plain speaking, plain speech, plain style, plain words, plainness, plebeian, pop, popular, predominating, prescriptive, prevailing, primitive, prosaicness, prosiness, provincial, public, regional, regular, regulation, restrainedness, rustic style, scatology, severity, simple, simpleness, simplicity, slang, soberness, spareness, speech, spoken, spoken language, standard, starkness, stock, straightforward, straightforwardness, substandard, substandard language, taboo language, talk, topical, unadorned style, unadornedness, unaffectedness, uneducated, unimaginativeness, universal, unliterary, unpoeticalness, unstudied, usual, vernacularism, vocabulary, vulgar, vulgar language, vulgar tongue, vulgate, wonted