natural language
noun
Simple meaning
A human written or spoken language used by a community.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nacheruhllanggwuhjSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnætʃɚəlˈlæŋɡwədʒ
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
retronymlinguistics
A human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language
retronymlinguistics
Any human language that has evolved naturally in a community, usually in contrast to computer programming languages, to controlled natural languages, and to constructed languages such as Esperanto (although constructed languages are subject to change by natural forces among fluent speakers).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language
Used this way, natural language is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a computing use: it carries a fixed technical meaning inside software and systems work.
- 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
- Technology
- Technical/specialist writing
- Business/professional
- Academic 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.
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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.