dialect

noun, often attributive di·a·lect \ ˈdī-ə-ˌlekt \

|Updated on: 10 Aug 2018

Editor's Note: Dialectic: Logic through Conversation

Definition of dialect

1 linguistics

a : a regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and constituting together with them a single language

the Doric dialect of ancient Greek

a dialect of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong

b : one of two or more cognate (see ¹cognate 3a) languages

French and Italian are Romance dialects

c : a variety of a language used by the members of a group

such dialects as politics and advertising
—Philip Howard

d : a variety of language whose identity is fixed by a factor other than geography (such as social class)

spoke a rough peasant dialect

e : register 4c

f : a version of a computer programming language

2 : manner or means of expressing oneself : phraseology

—

dialectal

play \ˌdī-ə-ˈlek-tᵊl\ adjective

—

dialectally

play \-tə-lē\ adverb

See dialect defined for English-language learners

See dialect defined for kids

Examples of dialect in a Sentence

They speak a southern dialect of French.
The author uses dialect in his writing.
The play was hard to understand when the characters spoke in dialect.

Recent Examples of dialect from the Web

Significant sections of the film are spoken in the native dialect with subtitles.

— aaron couch, The Hollywood Reporter, "Why 'Skyscraper' Director Will Never Make a Sequel to His Cult Classic 'Dodgeball'," 13 July 2018
What the pupil needs to learn is the dialect of a tribe.

— anthony lane, The New Yorker, "Gus Van Sant’s Semi-Surreal “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot”," 13 July 2018
American English is meant to grow wild and woolly on our shores, spawning dialects and pidgins, wantonly consuming foreign words and locutions, anarchically legitimizing slang and warped grammar.

— virginia heffernan, WIRED, "The Delicate Art of Creating New Emoji," 28 June 2018
It’s called code switching, the practice of switching between languages or in some cases, dialects.

— refinery29.com, "Sorry To Bother You," 10 July 2018
In addition to working on her dialect and laying the foundations of performance with Harron, Gadon read Atwood’s book six times.

— sonia saraiya, HWD, "A Look Beneath the Veil of Alias Grace’s Showstopping Hypnotism," 25 June 2018
This is almost all one word, a dialect peculiar to the Merrimack Valley, a gruff inflection as familiar to me as air.

— kara baskin, BostonGlobe.com, "The best Italian sub around, with mayo and memories," 18 June 2018
Citadel Theatre hired a coach to help with the physical scenes as well as a dialect coach to help the actors speak with British accents.

— sheryl devore, Lake County News-Sun, "Director: ‘Explorers Club’ is funny farce based in London," 17 Apr. 2018
Of course, the language of each state differs because of population and dialects.

— johnny diaz, Sun-Sentinel.com, "No see ums, hot minute and cher: What are the top slang words in Florida and the U.S.?," 28 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dialect.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Dialectic: Logic through Conversation

Dialectic is a term used in philosophy, and the fact that it is closely connected to the ideas of Socrates and Plato is completely logical—even from an etymological point of view. Plato’s famous dialogues frequently presented Socrates playing a leading role, and dialogue comes from the Greek roots dia- (“through” or “across”) and -logue (“discourse” or “talk”). Dialect and dialectic come from dialecktos (“conversation” or “dialect”) and ultimately back to the Greek word dialegesthai, meaning “to converse.”

Conversation or dialogue was indeed at the heart of the “Socratic method,” through which Socrates would ask probing questions which cumulatively revealed his students’ unsupported assumptions and misconceptions. The goal, according to the definition in our Unabridged Dictionary, was to “elicit a clear and consistent expression of something supposed to be implicitly known by all rational beings.”

Other philosophers had specific uses of the term dialectic, including Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Kantianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism. Asking a series of questions was considered by Socrates a method of “giving birth” to the truth, and a related word, maieutic, defined as “relating to or resembling the Socratic method of eliciting new ideas from another,” comes from the Greek word meaning “of midwifery.”