Entry Word: language

Function: noun

Meaning: 1 the stock of words, pronunciation, and grammar used by a people as their basic means of communication <Great Britain, the United States, Australia, and other countries where English is the dominant language>

Synonyms lingo, mother tongue, speech, tongue, vocabulary

Related Words argot, cant, dialect, idiom, jargon, parlance, patois, patter, pidgin, slang, vernacular; colloquialism, localism, regionalism; terminology

2 the special terms or expressions of a particular group or field <“love” means “nothing” in the language of tennis> — see terminology
3 the way in which something is put into words <finding the language of the legal documents to be difficult to understand> — see wording