vernacular
Syllables: ver·nac·u·larUK/vəˈnækjələ//vɚˈnækjəlɚ/
vernacular noun: the language of a people or a national language.
Noun
vernacular (plural vernaculars)
- The language of a people or a national language.
- The principal vernacular of the United States is English.
- The idea that the Bible should be translated into vernaculars was explosive in medieval society.
- Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
- Near-synonyms: basilect, demotic
- Street vernacular can be quite different from what is heard elsewhere.
- Language unique to a particular group of people.
- Near-synonyms: jargon, argot, dialect, slang
- For those of a certain age, hiphop vernacular might just as well be a foreign language.
- A language lacking standardization or a written form.
- Indigenous spoken language, as distinct from a literary or liturgical language such as Ecclesiastical Latin.
- Vatican II, a church council in the 1960s, allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular.
- A style of architecture involving local building materials and styles; not imported.
Adjective
vernacular (comparative more vernacular, superlative most vernacular)
- Of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
- Near-synonyms: common, everyday, indigenous, ordinary, vulgar, colloquial, basilectal, demotic
- There are blacktips, silvertips, bronze whalers, black whalers, spinner sharks, and bignose sharks. These of course are vernacular names, but this is one case where the scientific nomenclature does not clarify the species, since it is now being revised.1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 111
- Synonyms:
- common, everyday, indigenous, ordinary, vulgar, colloquial, basilectal, demotic
- Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or by nature.
- Near-synonyms: native, indigenous; endemic
- a vernacular disease
- Synonyms:
- native, indigenous, endemic
- Of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported.
- Synonyms:
- folk
- Connected to a collective memory; not imported.
- Not attempting to use the rules of a taxonomic code, especially, not using scientific Latin.
- An English vernacular name for Rosa multiflora is multiflora rose.
- Synonyms:
- common
vernacular meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
vernacular in Tamil
- தாய்நாட்டு, நாட்டு, நாட்டு மொழி, வட்டாரமொழி, தாய்மொழி, பகுதிமொழி
vernacular in Urdu
- vernacular
- زبان zabān
vernacular in Malayalam
- നാട്ടുഭാഷ, സ്വഭാഷ, മാതൃഭാഷ, നാട്ടുഭാഷയുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട, സ്വദേശവുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട
vernacular in Kannada
- ಆಡುನುಡಿ, ಮಾತೃಭಾಷೆ, ದೇಶಭಾಷೆ, ದೇಶ್ಯ
More languagesFewer languages
- vernacular in Indonesian
- vernakular, bahasa pasar, bahasa gaul, logat
- vernacular in Persian
- زبان محلی zabân-e mahalli
Examples of vernacular in a sentence
- Aristotle used vernacular names or names borrowed from terrestrial animals, such as mule, wolf or “sea toad”
- I never met anyone who knew it and I have never seen a vernacular name for it.
- Just because you see an unfamiliar term doesn’t mean that it’s part of the Twitter vernacular.
Synonyms of vernacular
7 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of vernacular
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | vernaculars |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more vernacular |
| superlative | most vernacular |
Origin of vernacular
From Latin vernāculus (“domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves”), from verna (“a native, a home-born slave (one born in his master's house)”).
Words formed from vernacular
Phrases with vernacular
Words that rhyme with vernacular
Questions about vernacular
- What does vernacular mean?
- Vernacular means the language of a people or a national language.
- What is vernacular in Tamil?
- Vernacular in Tamil is தாய்நாட்டு, நாட்டு, நாட்டு மொழி. See Vernacular meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is vernacular?
- Vernacular can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce vernacular?
- Vernacular is pronounced /vəˈnækjələ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of vernacular?
- The plural of vernacular is vernaculars.
Words near vernacular in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: vernacular (page history and authors); vernacular (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); زبان (Urdu) (page history and authors); vernacular (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vernacular (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-vernacular.ogg, en-au-vernacular.ogg.
Cite this entry: “vernacular.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vernacular. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.