interintelligible
interintelligible adjective: of a speech variety, able to be understood by speakers of another variety.
Adjective
interintelligible (comparative more interintelligible, superlative most interintelligible)
- Of a speech variety, able to be understood by speakers of another variety.
- The Okrika dialect, with Kalabari and Bonny, falls into the North-Eastern group of dialects which are partially interintelligible with Brass-Ndembe but not with the Central-Western dialects.1962, Kay Williamson, “Changes in the Marriage System of the Okrika Ijo”, in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 32(1): 53-60
- The sense of independence from London norms ... was difficult to establish with the obvious reality in mind that English, Scottish, Irish, American, Australian and other Englishes are, after all, interintelligible and undoubtedly varieties of one and the same language.1995, Manfred Görlach, More Englishes: New Studies in Varieties of English, 1988-1994, John Benjamins, page 128
- Synonyms:
- mutually intelligible
Synonyms of interintelligible
Forms of interintelligible
| comparative | more interintelligible |
|---|---|
| superlative | most interintelligible |
Origin of interintelligible
From inter- + intelligible.
Questions about interintelligible
- What does interintelligible mean?
- Interintelligible means of a speech variety, able to be understood by speakers of another variety.
- What part of speech is interintelligible?
- Interintelligible is an adjective.
Words near interintelligible in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: interintelligible (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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