ebonics
Syllables: ebon·icsUS/iˈbɑnɪks/
ebonics is the alternative letter-case form of Ebonics.
Proper noun capitalized: Ebonics
Ebonics (uncountable)
- African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
- Buried among the jargon of the announcement was a mention of a name for AAVE, suggested by a Black scholar in 1975^([sic]) but never adopted by linguists: Ebonics. That word, concocted from ebony (a color term from the name of a dark-colored wood) and phonics (the name of a method for teaching...1999, Geoffrey K. Pullum, “African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes”, in Rebecca S. Wheeler, editor, The Workings of Language, →ISBN, page 40
Forms of ebonics
| alternative form | ebonics |
|---|
Origin of ebonics
Blend of ebony + phonics. Coined by scholars at the Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child conference in 1973 led by Robert L. Williams and published in his book Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (1975). Considered outdated by some.
Words formed from ebonics
Words that rhyme with ebonics
Questions about ebonics
- What does ebonics mean?
- Ebonics means african-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
- What is ebonics the alternative letter-case form of?
- Ebonics is the alternative letter-case form of Ebonics.
- What part of speech is ebonics?
- Ebonics is a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce ebonics?
- Ebonics is pronounced /iˈbɑnɪks/ (US).
Words near ebonics in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ebonics (page history and authors); Ebonics (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: “ebonics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ebonics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.