Word.ws English Dictionary

hyperlect

hyperlect noun: the variety of a language that is spoken by the aristocracy.

Noun

hyperlect (plural hyperlects)

  1. The variety of a language that is spoken by the aristocracy.
    • Quite distinct from received pronunciation or BBC English, hyperlect now sounds, in our more egalitarian sonic society, affected and outdated, and has largely been abandoned by the younger generation in favour of a more neutral version, either based on radio and television speak, the over-voice of...2001, Maureen Duffy, England: The Making of the Myth, page 168
    • While remaining a speaker of a unique hyperlect, the Queen now employs a diction which is (comparatively) demotic when judged against earlier recordings.2003, Speaking English: Journal of the ESB (International).

Forms of hyperlect

pluralhyperlects

Origin of hyperlect

From hyper- + -lect, Ancient Greek affixes meaning literally “overspeech”, that is, the speech of the overclass.

Questions about hyperlect

What does hyperlect mean?
Hyperlect means the variety of a language that is spoken by the aristocracy.
What part of speech is hyperlect?
Hyperlect is a noun.
What is the plural of hyperlect?
The plural of hyperlect is hyperlects.

Words near hyperlect in the dictionary

  1. hyperlapses
  2. hyperlattice
  3. hyperlattices
  4. hyperlaxity
  5. hyperlearning
  6. hyperlect
  7. hyperlects
  8. hyperledger
  9. hyperledgers
  10. hyperlegal
  11. hyperlegible

Source and license

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