grammar
noun
Simple meaning
A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gramerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɹæmɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
countable and uncountablelinguistics
A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
uncountablelinguistics
The study of such a system.
uncountable
Actual or presumed prescriptive notions about the correct use of a language.
countablefigurative
The basic rules or principles of a field of knowledge or a particular skill.
countable
A book describing the grammar (noun, sense 1 or noun, sense 2) of a language.
countable and uncountablechiefly Britishinformal
A school that teaches its pupils the grammar system of a European language, especially Latin and Greek.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (countable and uncountable, linguistics) A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
Used this way, grammar is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use grammar
- “Good grammar is essential for writing clear and effective communication.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Basic
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A secondary school emphasizing Latin and Greek in preparation for college.
A grammar that is produced by descriptive linguistics.
A grammar that is produced by prescriptive linguistics.
A linguistic rule for the syntax of grammatical utterances.
A type of grammar that describes syntax in terms of a set of logical rules that can generate all and only the infinite number of grammatical sentences in a language and assigns them all the…
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- syntacticadjective
- chomskynoun
- linguisticsnoun
- syntaxnoun
- linguisticadjective
- lexiconnoun
- grammaticaladjective
- rhetoricnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.