Word.ws English Dictionary

AB language

AB language noun: a variety of Middle English found in the Corpus manuscript and characterized by French and Norse loanwords, colloquial expressions, conservative spelling, and similarities to Old English syntax.

Noun

AB language (uncountable)

  1. A variety of Middle English found in the Corpus manuscript and characterized by French and Norse loanwords, colloquial expressions, conservative spelling, and similarities to Old English syntax.

Origin of AB language

Coined in 1929 by J. R. R. Tolkien, from the first letters of Ancrene Wisse and Bodleian Library.

Questions about AB language

What does AB language mean?
AB language means a variety of Middle English found in the Corpus manuscript and characterized by French and Norse loanwords, colloquial expressions, conservative spelling, and similarities to Old English syntax.
What part of speech is AB language?
AB language is a noun.

Words near AB language in the dictionary

  1. ab initio
  2. ab intestato
  3. ab intra
  4. ab invito
  5. Ab Kettleby
  6. AB language
  7. ab off
  8. ab origine
  9. ab ovo
  10. ab roller
  11. ab roller wheel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: AB language (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “AB language.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ab_language. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.