DIALECT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Dialect

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/dˈaɪəlˌɛkt/ Listen

noun

Dialect n.

Means or mode of expressing thoughts; language; tongue; form of speech. "This book is writ in such a dialect As may the minds of listless men affect. Bunyan. The universal dialect of the world."

The form of speech of a limited region or people, as distinguished from ether forms nearly related to it; a variety or subdivision of a language; speech characterized by local peculiarities or specific circumstances; as, the Ionic and Attic were dialects of Greece; the Yorkshire dialect; the dialect of the learned. "In the midst of this Babel of dialects there suddenly appeared a standard English language." "(Charles V.) could address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect."

Synonyms: Language; idiom; tongue; speech; phraseology. See Language, and Idiom.

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Etymology of 'Dialect'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dialect" Quotes from Famous Books

... which he now spent twice a week with Mr. Merton, and his extensive reading, had modified his rough Staffordshire dialect, and when with his master he spoke correct English almost free of provincialisms, although with his comrades of the pit he spoke as they spoke, and never introduced any allusion to his studies. All questions as to his object in spending his evenings ...

— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... others, and thereby to preserve or even intensify their natural characteristics; or it may expose them to extraneous influences, to an infusion of new blood and new ideas, till their peculiarities are toned down, their distinctive features of dialect or national dress or provincial customs eliminated, and the people as a whole approach to the composite type of civilized humanity. A land shut off by mountains or sea from the rest of the world tends to develop ...

— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... the gentle face of his mother, as she worked in her old-fashioned garden of rosemary, hollyhocks, larkspur, iris, rue, ... heard the soft dialect of quaint old ladies gossiping on the broad, shaded portico ... listened again to the laughter of neighboring judges, colonels, majors—his father's old cronies—as they good-naturedly wrangled and ...

— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... sventura Si non tuorne chiu, Rosella! Tu d' Amalfi la chiu bella, Tu na Fata si pe me! Viene, vie, regina mie, Viene curre a chisto core, Ca non c'e non c'e sciore, Non c'e Stella comm'a te!" [Footnote: A popular song in the Neapolitan dialect.] ...

— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... astonishment, and irritation that he can write when he pleases in a style of the purest and noblest simplicity; that he can make his characters converse in a language worthy of Sophocles when he does not prefer to make them stutter in a dialect worthy of Lycophron. And in the tragedy of "Sophonisba" the display of this happy capacity is happily reserved for the crowning scene of the poem. It would be difficult to find anywhere a more preposterous or disjointed piece of jargon than the speech of Asdrubal ...

— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

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