vernacular
UK /vəˈnækjələ/ · US /vɚˈnækjəlɚ/ noun, adjective
Forms vernaculars
- noun The language of a people or a national language. “The principal vernacular of the United States is English.”
- noun Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom. “Street vernacular can be quite different from what is heard elsewhere.”
- noun Language unique to a particular group of people. “For those of a certain age, hiphop vernacular might just as well be a foreign language.”
- noun A language lacking standardization or a written form.
- noun Indigenous spoken language, as distinct from a literary or liturgical language such as Ecclesiastical Latin. “Vatican II, a church council in the 1960s, allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular.”
- noun (architecture) A style of architecture involving local building materials and styles; not imported.
- adjective Of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
- adjective Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or by nature. “a vernacular disease”
- adjective (architecture) Of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported.
- adjective (art) Connected to a collective memory; not imported.
- adjective (taxonomy) Not attempting to use the rules of a taxonomic code, especially, not using scientific Latin. “An English vernacular name for Rosa multiflora is multiflora rose.”
Synonyms
vulgate vulgar basilect demotic jargon argot dialect slang common everyday indigenous ordinary colloquial basilectal native endemic folk cant lingo patois
Antonyms
Etymology
From Latin vernāculus (“domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves”), from verna (“a native, a home-born slave (one born in his master's house)”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective 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.
- noun The vernacular language; one's mother tongue; often, the common forms of expression in a particular locality.
Etymology [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.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “vernacular”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details