different between word vs language

English

Alternative forms

• vurd (Bermuda)
• worde (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??d/
• (General American) enPR: wûrd, IPA^(key): /w?d/
• Rhymes: -??(?)d
• Homophone: whirred (accents with the wine-whine merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English word, from Old English word, from Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurd?, from Proto-Indo-European *wr?d?h?om. Doublet of verb.

Noun

word (countable and uncountable, plural words)

1. The smallest unit of language that has a particular meaning and can be expressed by itself; the smallest discrete, meaningful unit of language. (contrast morpheme.)

   1. The smallest discrete unit of spoken language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more phonemes and one or more morphemes
   2. The smallest discrete unit of written language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more letters or symbols and one or more morphemes
      • , act 2, scene 2:

        Polonius: What do you read, my lord?

        Hamlet: Words, words, words.
   3. A discrete, meaningful unit of language approved by an authority or native speaker (compare non-word).
2. Something like such a unit of language:
   1. A sequence of letters, characters, or sounds, considered as a discrete entity, though it does not necessarily belong to a language or have a meaning
   2. (telegraphy) A unit of text equivalent to five characters and one space. [from 19th c.]
   4. (computing) A fixed-size group of bits handled as a unit by a machine and which can be stored in or retrieved from a typical register (so that it has the same size as such a register). [from 20th c.]
   5. (computer science) A finite string that is not a command or operator. [from 20th or 21st c.]
   6. (group theory) A group element, expressed as a product of group elements.
3. The fact or act of speaking, as opposed to taking action. [from 9th c].
4. (now rare outside certain phrases) Something that someone said; a comment, utterance; speech. [from 10th c.]
   • 1611, Bible, Authorized Version, Matthew XXVI.75:

     And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
5. (obsolete outside certain phrases) A watchword or rallying cry, a verbal signal (even when consisting of multiple words).

6. (obsolete) A proverb or motto.
8. News; tidings (used without an article). [from 10th c.]

   • Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals.

9. An order; a request or instruction; an expression of will. [from 10th c.]

10. A promise; an oath or guarantee. [from 10th c.]

    Synonym: promise

11. A brief discussion or conversation. [from 15th c.]

12. (in the plural) See words.

13. (theology, sometimes Word) Communication from God; the message of the Christian gospel; the Bible, Scripture. [from 10th c.]

    Synonyms: word of God, Bible

14. (theology, sometimes Word) Logos, Christ. [from 8th c.]
    • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, John I:

      And that worde was made flesshe, and dwelt amonge vs, and we sawe the glory off yt, as the glory off the only begotten sonne off the father, which worde was full of grace, and verite.

    Synonyms: God, Logos

Usage notes

In English and other languages with a tradition of space-delimited writing, it is customary to treat "word" as referring to any sequence of characters delimited by spaces. However, this is not applicable to languages such as Chinese and Japanese, which are normally written without spaces, or to languages such as Vietnamese, which are written with spaces delimiting syllables.

In computing, the size (length) of a word, while being fixed in a particular machine or processor family design, can be different in different designs, for many reasons. See Word (computer architecture) for a full explanation.

Synonyms

• vocable; see also Thesaurus:word

Derived terms

Descendants

• Chinese Pidgin English: word, ????

Translations

Verb

word (third-person singular simple present words, present participle wording, simple past and past participle worded)

1. (transitive) To say or write (something) using particular words; to phrase (something).

   Synonyms: express, phrase, put into words, state

2. (transitive, obsolete) To flatter with words, to cajole.
3. (transitive) To ply or overpower with words.
4. (transitive, rare) To conjure with a word.
   • c. 1645–1715, Robert South, Sermon on Psalm XXXIX. 9:

     Against him [...] who could word heaven and earth out of nothing, and can when he pleases word them into nothing again.
5. (intransitive, archaic) To speak, to use words; to converse, to discourse.

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

word

1. (slang, African-American Vernacular) Truth, indeed, that is the truth! The shortened form of the statement "My word is my bond."

2. (slang, emphatic, stereotypically, African-American Vernacular) An abbreviated form of word up; a statement of the acknowledgment of fact with a hint of nonchalant approval.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:word.

See also

• allomorph
• compound word
• grapheme
• idiomatic
• lexeme
• listeme
• morpheme
• orthographic
• phrase
• set phrase
• syllable
• term

Etymology 2

Variant of worth (“to become, turn into, grow, get”), from Middle English worthen, from Old English weorþan (“to turn into, become, grow”), from Proto-Germanic *werþan? (“to turn, turn into, become”). More at worth § Verb.

Verb

word

1. Alternative form of worth (“to become”).

Further reading

• word on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• drow

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch worden, from Middle Dutch werden, from Old Dutch werthan, from Proto-Germanic *werþan?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?rt/

Verb

word (present word, present participle wordende, past participle geword)

1. to become; to get (to change one’s state)

2. Forms the present passive voice when followed by a past participle

Usage notes

• The verb has an archaic preterite werd: Die kat werd gevoer. (“The cat was fed.”) In contemporary Afrikaans the perfect is used instead: Die kat is gevoer.

Chinese Pidgin English

Alternative forms

• ???? (Chinese characters)

Etymology

From English word.

Noun

word

1. word

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??rt/
• Rhymes: -?rt

Verb

word

1. first-person singular present indicative of worden
2. imperative of worden

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wurd, weord, vord, woord, wourd, worde

Etymology

From Old English word, from Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurd?, from Proto-Indo-European *werd?h?om. Doublet of verbe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wurd/, /w?rd/, /w??rd/

Noun

word (plural wordes or (Early ME) word)

1. A word (separable, discrete linguistic unit)

2. A statement; a linguistic unit said or written by someone:
   1. A speech; a formal statement.
   2. A byword or maxim; a short expression of truth.
   3. A promise; an oath or guarantee.
   4. A motto; a expression associated with a person or people.
   5. A piece of news (often warning or recommending)
   6. An order or directive; something necessary.
   7. A religious precept, stricture, or belief.
3. Discourse; the exchange of statements.
4. The act of speaking (especially as opposed to action)
5. The basic, non-figurative reading of something.
6. The way one speaks (especially with modifying adjective)
7. (theology) The Logos (Jesus Christ)
8. (rare) The linguistic faculty as a whole.

Related terms

• bodeword
• byword
• hereword
• mysword
• wacche word
• worden
• wordy
• wytword

Descendants

• English: word
• Scots: wird, wourd

References

• “w??rd, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 27 February 2020.

Old English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /word/, [wor?d]

Etymology 1

From Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurd?.

Noun

word n (nominative plural word)

1. word
2. speech, utterance, statement
3. (grammar) verb
4. news, information, rumour
5. command, request

Declension

Derived terms

Descendants

• Middle English: word, wurd, weord
  • Scots: word, wourd
  • English: word

Etymology 2

Unknown. Perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wr?d?os (“sweetbriar”).

Noun

word ?

1. thornbush

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurd?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?rd/

Noun

word n

1. word

Declension

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: l?ng?gw?j, IPA^(key): /?læ??w?d??/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): (see /æ/ raising) [?le???w?d??]
• Hyphenation: lan?guage

Etymology 1

From Middle English langage, language, from Old French language, from Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Old Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn???wéh?s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Old English ?eþ?ode.

Noun

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

1. (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
   • 1867, Report on the Systems of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907 ?ISBN, page 240:

     Hence the natural language of the mute is, in schools of this class, suppressed as soon and as far as possible, and its existence as a language, capable of being made the reliable and precise vehicle for the widest range of thought, is ignored.
2. (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.

3. (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:

     And ‘blubbing’... Blubbing went out with ‘decent’ and ‘ripping’. Mind you, not a bad new language to start up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could be due for a revival.

4. (countable, uncountable, figuratively) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.
   • 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Becoming a Counselor ?ISBN:

     A tale about themselves [is] told by people with help from the universal languages of their eyes, their hands, and even their shirting feet.
5. (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
   • 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:

     A more likely hypothesis was that the attacked leaves were transmitting some airborne chemical signal to sound the alarm, rather like insects sending out warnings […] But this is the first time that a plant-to-plant language has been detected.

   • 2009, Animals in Translation, page 274:

     Prairie dogs use their language to refer to real dangers in the real world, so it definitely has meaning.

6. (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
   • 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages ?ISBN, page 94

     In fact pointers are called references in these languages to distinguish them from pointers in languages like C and C++.

7. (uncountable) Manner of expression.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Hope

     Their language simple, as their manners meek, […]

8. (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.

9. (uncountable) Profanity.

Synonyms

• (form of communication): see Thesaurus:language
• (vocabulary of a particular field): see Thesaurus:jargon
• (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
• (particular words used): see Thesaurus:wording

Hypernyms

• medium

Hyponyms

• See Category:en:Languages

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)

1. (rare, now nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.

   • Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense.

See also

• bilingual
• lexis
• linguistics
• multilingual
• term
• trilingual
• word

Etymology 2

Alteration of languet.

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.

References

• language at OneLook Dictionary Search
• language in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• language in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. Archaic spelling of langage.

Middle English

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. Alternative form of langage

Middle French

Alternative forms

• langage
• langaige
• languaige

Etymology

From Old French language.

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue

Descendants

• French: langage
  • Haitian Creole: langaj
    • ? English: langaj
  • Mauritian Creole: langaz

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lan??ad???/

Noun

language f (oblique plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue, lingue

Descendants

• ? Middle English: language
  • English: language
• Middle French: language
  • French: langage
    • Haitian Creole: langaj
      • ? English: langaj
    • Mauritian Creole: langaz
• ? Old Spanish: lenguage