idiolect

Definition of idiolectnext

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 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
  • The conflicts are raw and unresolved, and Churchill forces theatergoers to make up their own minds about the characters’ furious dialect.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Documenting many varieties is a way to not just share the language, but to illustrate how dialects of Pennsylvania Dutch differ and maybe even fill in each other’s gaps.
    — Eythana Miller, The Dial, 24 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • The first Velvet Underground album, the mid-period Beatles, Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival records, with enough time, seem almost like different components to the same idiom.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2026
  • Cinema is, after all, a language, and Belgian filmmakers come from a country built on the need to understand language as a bridge—between its regions, its people, and its idioms.
    — Rafa Sales Ross, Variety, 11 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • His advice was simple, wrapped in the self-improvement argot of our times.
    — Erin Vanderhoof, Vanity Fair, 21 Apr. 2026
  • The filles, mostly from larger cities, arrived with their own urban argots.
    — Ann Foster, JSTOR Daily, 9 July 2025
Noun
  • McCaffrey and the 49ers will return to the United States after their win and lesson in Australian slang to play the Miami Dolphins in Week 2.
    — Ryan Canfield OutKick, FOXNews.com, 11 Sep. 2026
  • The script itself is filled with the language of its time and place, including Berliner gutter slang and high-society clichés, casino speech and capitalist jargon, spoken Yiddish and literary German.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 9 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • Jamaica’s official language and civilizational ideal was the Queen’s English, but the island’s lingua franca was the marvelous variant of that tongue called patois.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Aug. 2026
  • In truth, plenty of New Yorkers are both privileged and come from elsewhere, but still fall into the rhythm and the patois that has long defined the city.
    — Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 3 July 2026
Noun
  • For now, this is an intriguing proof of concept, a tantalizing glimpse of what electric mobility might look like someday, and a technology wrapped in enough engineering jargon to make the average driver’s eyes glaze over.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 18 Oct. 2026
  • Market breadth, the jargon for how many stocks across the index are contributing to gains, has fallen to its lowest level since the dotcom bubble, according to a recent Goldman Sachs analysis.
    — Eric Rosenbaum, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2026
Noun
  • Kuechly needs to explain some football vernacular a little more.
    — Andrew Marchand, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2026
  • Over Taiwanese breakfast, Claira Janover, a lively 28-year-old working for the AI fashion start-up Phia, is explaining the latest vernacular from Wasia.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 8 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • These words often appeared in the parlance of racial grievance.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 14 Oct. 2026
  • The backstory The Park Hyatt Milan is, as the contemporary parlance goes, so back.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 Oct. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Idiolect.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idiolect. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

More from Merriam-Webster on idiolect

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!