vernacular
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
The language of a people or a national language.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vernakyuhlerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
vɚˈnækjəlɚ
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 language of a people or a national language.
Language unique to a particular group of people.
Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
The everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language)
A characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)
A language lacking standardization or a written form.
adjective
Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or by nature.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The language of a people or a national language.
Used this way, vernacular is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A genre of art and outdoor constructions made by untrained artists who do not recognize themselves as artists.
A nonstandard form of American English characteristically spoken by African Americans in the United States.
A nonstandard form of American English characteristically spoken by African Americans in the United States.
A nonstandard form of American English characteristically spoken by African Americans in the United States.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.