Word.ws English Dictionary

nonstandard variety

nonstandard variety noun: any form or dialect of a language that deviates from the established standard.

Noun

nonstandard variety (plural nonstandard varieties)

  1. Any form or dialect of a language that deviates from the established standard.
    • The contents of this booklet are the results of a unified effort by experienced teachers and sociolinguists to "help students whose native tongue is a nonstandard variety of English."1969, Educational Research Information Center (U.S.), Educational Resources Information Center (U.S.) (contributors), “Nonstandard Dialect”, in Research in Education, volume 4, page 20
    • Finally, many children speak a nonstandard variety of their native language even though they understand the standard variety, which is the language of wider communication.1975, United States Commission on Civil Rights, A Better Chance to Learn - Bilingual Bicultural Education, Volume 51, page 112

Examples of nonstandard variety in a sentence

  • Even if there is not a variety of English spoken exclusively by Negroes, the fact is the great majority of culturally disadvantaged Negro pupils speak a nonstandard variety of English.1977, Glendon F. Drake, The Role of Prescriptivism in American Linguistics 1820–1970, page 80:
  • That we refer to a certain type of language as “nonstandard” presupposes that there is a standard language against which this nonstandard variety can be judged.1999, Gunnel Melchers, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, Writing in Nonstandard English, page 123:
  • Geneva Tisdale speaks a nonstandard variety of English that is spoken by many black people in the South and throughout the United States.2001, Maurice Cogan Hauck, Kenneth MacDougall, David Isay, Twelve American Voices, An Authentic Listening and Integrated-Skills Textbook...

Synonyms of nonstandard variety

Antonyms

Forms of nonstandard variety

pluralnonstandard varieties
alternative formnon-standard variety

Questions about nonstandard variety

What does nonstandard variety mean?
Nonstandard variety means any form or dialect of a language that deviates from the established standard.
How do you use nonstandard variety in a sentence?
Even if there is not a variety of English spoken exclusively by Negroes, the fact is the great majority of culturally disadvantaged Negro pupils speak a nonstandard variety of English.
What part of speech is nonstandard variety?
Nonstandard variety is a noun.
What is the plural of nonstandard variety?
The plural of nonstandard variety is nonstandard varieties.

Words near nonstandard variety in the dictionary

  1. nonstandard number
  2. nonstandard numbers
  3. nonstandard unit
  4. nonstandard units
  5. nonstandard varieties
  6. nonstandard variety
  7. nonstandardised
  8. nonstandardization
  9. nonstandardizations
  10. nonstandardized
  11. nonstandardly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nonstandard variety (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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