linguistics
noun
Simple meaning
The humanistic study of language and literature.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lihnggwistiksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
lɪŋɡˈwɪstɪks
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
The humanistic study of language and literature
The systematic and scholarly study of language.
The scientific study of language
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Academic
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The humanistic study of language and literature
Used this way, linguistics is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use linguistics
- “He studies linguistics to understand how languages work and change.”
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Consisting of or related to language.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
With respect to the science of linguistics.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The academic department responsible for teaching and research in linguistics.
The study of linguistic change.
An account of how a language should be used instead of how it is actually used.
Linguistics defined as the analysis of formal structures in a text or discourse.
The use of computers for linguistic research and applications.
The study of a language without reference to its historical context.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A speaker's implicit, internalized knowledge of the rules of their language (contrasted with linguistic performance).
A speaker's actual use of language in real situations.
A rule describing (or prescribing) a linguistic practice.
A specialist in linguistics.
A grammatical rule (or other linguistic feature) that is found in all languages.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: humanistic study of language and literature
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Keep learning “linguistics” by choosing the kind of practice you need next.
- Practice sentence writingWrite sentences with vocabulary and get instant feedback.
- Practice in contextAnswer short vocabulary questions drawn from real situations.
- Review vocabularyTest your recall and strengthen words over time.
- Practice typingType vocabulary from meanings, examples and other prompts.
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.