idiolect

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of idiolect In this way, the Delta method captures features that vary according to their authors’ idiolects. Karolina Rudnicka, Scientific American, 9 July 2025 Attackers can mimic the distinct idiolect of the target. Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 18 Nov. 2023 Butler appears to have picked up Elvis’s idiolect, Howell says. Erica Sweeney, Men's Health, 8 Feb. 2023 Sherif’s music exists in the space between autobiographical and his own idiolect. Jayson Buford, Rolling Stone, 3 June 2022 And then there’s his inborn ear for every shade of human babble, here a transcendent four-hander, there a screwball travelogue, everywhere argot and idiolect and argument. New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020 His writing conveys an extraordinary ear for accent, rhythm, and idiolect. Maya Jasanoff, The New Republic, 22 Aug. 2019 Kathleen is relentlessly animated and quick-witted, with thick tangerine hair, steely eyes, and an endearing personal idiolect that suggests both an autodidactic reading in philosophy and economics and the gusty crudity of the merchant marine. Gideon Lewis-Kraus, WIRED, 18 June 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for idiolect
Noun
  • But Simeon Silverio, former publisher of the San Diego Asian Journal, said Bayani reflects only one of many Filipino dialects and would fail to represent the country’s diverse cultural groups, each of which has its own word for hero.
    Walker Armstrong, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Even something as simple as the Chicago dialect and John Gacy’s individual odd, idiosyncratic way of speaking.
    Seth Abramovitch, HollywoodReporter, 21 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Music unites the interconnecting stories in this saga and expands its passions, with a sumptuous score by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens that taps into a wide range of American styles, idioms and amalgams, even as the second act turns more dissonant.
    Frank Rizzo, Variety, 17 Oct. 2025
  • The history of labor struggle, infused with religious idioms, is a source of identity and values evident in everything from union meetings in churches to prayers on picket lines.
    The Conversation, The Conversation, 7 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • The filles, mostly from larger cities, arrived with their own urban argots.
    Ann Foster, JSTOR Daily, 9 July 2025
  • The basic technology is complicated enough, but the subculture—with its own particular argot and decorum—is what’s truly forbidding.
    Will Gottsegen, The Atlantic, 10 June 2025
Noun
  • Every generation invents its own slang, and language evolves in ways most of us will never consciously perceive, Jones said.
    Scottie Andrew, CNN Money, 18 Oct. 2025
  • What other slang does Gen Alpha use?
    Mariyam Muhammad, Cincinnati Enquirer, 8 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Elliott spits her verses in patois, freeing up space on the track for the drums to get some before Cartel and M.I.A. slide through. 41.
    Steven J. Horowitz, Vulture, 11 Apr. 2025
  • And so there’s West Indian patois and language and music and food.
    Vanessa Franko, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2025
Noun
  • Once the threat level jumps to Defcon 1, so does the movie, and the cross-cutting between various parties issuing emergency orders and assessing the situation in terse acronym-heavy jargon begins in earnest.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Their language was neutral and polished, laced with political jargon.
    Andrew Rojecki, The Conversation, 21 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Over the last three decades, Rick Owens has built a universe with its own fashion vernacular—a world where high fashion meets dystopia and rebellion is the ultimate form of self-expression.
    Irina Grechko, Vogue, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Endeavoring to make a 12-hour documentary on a subject that predates the invention of photography, and whose sources are written in an 18th-century vernacular, was in other respects a daunting mission.
    Sarah Botstein, The Atlantic, 8 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • In liberal parlance, that’s a Do Pass Go and Do Collect Millions card.
    Boston Herald editorial staff, Boston Herald, 22 Oct. 2025
  • In auto industry parlance, the loans were underwater.
    Daniel de Visé, USA Today, 21 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Idiolect.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idiolect. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

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