Esperanto
UK /ˌɛspəˈɹæntəʊ/ · US /ˌɛspəˈɹæntoʊ/ proper noun
- proper noun An international auxiliary language designed by L. L. Zamenhof.
- proper noun (figuratively) Anything that is used as a single international medium in place of plural distinct national media. “The U.S. dollar is the Esperanto of currency.”
Etymology
A learned borrowing from Esperanto Esperanto. Originally, this was the pseudonym assumed by the creator of the language, L. L. Zamenhof, and the language was called Lingvo Internacia (“international language”). The term first appears in the publication Science in 1892.
Webster’s 1913
- noun An artificial language, intended to be universal, devised by Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian, who adopted the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto" in publishing his first pamphlet regarding it in 1887. The vocabulary is very largely based upon words common to the chief European languages, and sounds peculiar to any one language are eliminated. The spelling is phonetic, and the accent (stress) is always on the penult. -- Es`pe*ran"tist (#), n.
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “Esperanto”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details