Word.ws English Dictionary

equilingualism

equilingualism noun: the state or property of being equilingual.

Noun

equilingualism (usually uncountable, plural equilingualisms)

  1. (usually) The state or property of being equilingual.
    • All investigators agree that bilingualism is not equilingualism.1947, Gwan Leong Tan, Bilingual Education and Its Inherent Problems, With Special Reference to Burma, page 136
    • But considering the potential role of theory in informing and guiding practice, the real point of interest is whether equilingualism is desirable as a goal in second language learning and teaching.1975, University of Ifẹ Press (publisher), Odù, volumes 10-16, page 92

Examples of equilingualism in a sentence

  • It is shown that equilingualisms, native competence in each of a bilingual's languages, is common when the languages are acquired in childhood but cannot generally be obtained after puberty.1979, Jacob Ornstein-Galicia, Robert N. St. Clair (editors), Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, New Readings and Insights, page 282:
  • Equilingualism is fair because it tends to even out the advantages and disadvantages of being English- or French-speaking, with minorities of each language being in comparable positions.1981, Canada, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (contributor), Language and Society, volumes 1-6:

Forms of equilingualism

pluralequilingualisms

Origin of equilingualism

From equilingual + -ism. First use appears c. 1947. See cite below.

Questions about equilingualism

What does equilingualism mean?
Equilingualism means the state or property of being equilingual.
How do you use equilingualism in a sentence?
It is shown that equilingualisms, native competence in each of a bilingual's languages, is common when the languages are acquired in childhood but cannot generally be obtained after puberty.
What part of speech is equilingualism?
Equilingualism is a noun.
What is the plural of equilingualism?
The plural of equilingualism is equilingualisms.

Words near equilingualism in the dictionary

  1. equilibrize
  2. equilibrizes
  3. equilibrizing
  4. equilin
  5. equilingual
  6. equilingualism
  7. equilingualisms
  8. equilinguals
  9. equilisation
  10. equilobate
  11. equilobed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: equilingualism (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: “equilingualism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/equilingualism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.