1 a
: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community
- studied the French language
b (1)
: audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs
(2)
: a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings
- the language of mathematics
(3)
: the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings
- language in their very gesture
- —William Shakespeare
(4)
: the means by which animals communicate
- the language of birds
(5)
: a formal system of signs and symbols (such as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions
(6)
: machine language 1
2 a
: form or manner of verbal expression;
specifically
: style
- the beauty of Shakespeare's language
b
: the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge
- the language of diplomacy
- medical language
c
: profanity
- shouldn't of blamed the fellers if they'd cut loose with some language
- —Ring Lardner
3
: the study of language especially as a school subject
- earned a grade of B in language
4
: specific words especially in a law or regulation
- The police were diligent in enforcing the language of the law.
