multilingual

adjective

mul·​ti·​lin·​gual ˌməl-tē-ˈliŋ-gwəl 

-ˈliŋ-gyə-wəl, 

-ˌtī-

1

: of, having, or expressed in several languages

a multilingual sign

multilingual dictionaries

2

: using or able to use several languages especially with equal fluency

multilingual translators

multilingualism

ˌməl-tē-ˈliŋ-gwə-ˌli-zəm 

-gyə-wə-, 

-ˌtī-

noun

multilingually

ˌməl-tē-ˈliŋ-gwə-lē 

-gyə-wə-lē, 

-ˌtī-

adverb

Did you know?

The roots of multilingual come from Latin. If you happen to prefer Greek, use the synonym polyglot, in which poly- has the same meaning as multi-, and -glot means the same thing as -lingual. The best way to become multilingual is probably to be born in a bilingual (two-language) household; learning those first two seems to give the mind the kind of exercise that makes later language-learning easy.

Examples of multilingual in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The positions cut dealt with early learning, multilingual literacy, college and career readiness and the GATE program. —Jennah Pendleton, Sacbee.com, 8 May 2026

School Committee members extensively questioned the policy Wednesday, digging into how the success of the new guardrails would be monitored, how equity would be ensured across groups like multilingual learners and students with less technological resources and more. —Grace Zokovitch, Boston Herald, 7 May 2026

Live translation features OpenAI also launched GPT-Realtime-Translate, a real-time translation model designed for multilingual conversations. —Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 7 May 2026

These agents are naturally multilingual. —Kate Rooney, CNBC, 4 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1838, in the meaning defined at sense 1