Serbo-Croatian

noun

Ser·​bo-Cro·​a·​tian ˌsər-(ˌ)bō-krō-ˈā-shən How to pronounce Serbo-Croatian (audio)
1
: the Serbian and Croatian languages together with the Slavic speech of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro taken as a single language with regional variants
2
: a person whose native language is Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian adjective

Examples of Serbo-Croatian in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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But the book had been published in only two languages, Hungarian in 1950 and Serbo-Croatian in 1951, preventing widespread dissemination. Lois K. Solomon, Sun Sentinel, 3 Feb. 2025 One of the world’s most vicious civil wars today, that in the land that once was Yugoslavia, pits peoples unified by language but divided by religion and ethnicity: Orthodox Serbs against Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians, all speaking Serbo-Croatian. Jared Diamond, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019 In the mission in Cyprus, for example, few peacekeepers speak Greek or Turkish; the same is true for Arabic or Nuer in South Sudan, Albanian or Serbo-Croatian in Kosovo, and French or Haitian Creole in Haiti. Séverine Autesserre, Foreign Affairs, 11 Dec. 2018

Word History

First Known Use

1883, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of Serbo-Croatian was in 1883

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Cite this Entry

“Serbo-Croatian.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Serbo-Croatian. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.

Kids Definition

Serbo-Croatian

noun
Ser·​bo-Cro·​atian
ˌsər-(ˌ)bō-krō-ˈā-shən
: the Serbian and Croatian languages together with the Slavic speech of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro considered as a single language with regional variants
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