lin·guis·tics
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Definition of linguistics
: the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language
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Examples of linguistics in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
They were inspired by Stephen Bax, a linguistics professor at the University of Bedfordshire who in 2014 published research claiming to have partially solved the language riddle using methods that deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. — John Woolfolk, The Mercury News, "Voynich Manuscript: Did Bay Area researchers decipher mysterious medieval book?," 12 July 2019 John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia, argues the lack of gifted and talented programs in New York City elementary and middle schools is one reason why few minority students are admitted to the city’s top high schools. — Allison Schrager, Quartz, "How young is too young to begin preparing for a career?," 6 June 2019 Technology Andy Wood and Matt Kirshen test the limits of everyday AI by using children of a variety of ages in linguistics tests designed to determine which AI is the best at understanding the most people. — Robin Marantz Henig, WIRED, "Women May Have an Alternative to Freezing Their Eggs," 27 Mar. 2018 The confusion has been so great that, in a major Supreme Court case, linguistics professors submitted a brief providing the justices with lessons on the punctuation and grammar. — Kurt Eichenwald, Newsweek, "Americans Don't Have the Right to Bear Just Any Arms," 16 July 2015 Her father, who retired as a linguistics professor from Hong Kong Baptist University, is an independent researcher in Washington focusing on sociolinguistics and Sudanese languages. — New York Times, "Sigrid Jernudd, Naveen Vennam," 18 Feb. 2018 That witness was Roger Shuy, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University. — CBS News, "Did a Texas millionaire get away with a brutal double murder?," 23 Jan. 2018 Kidd says Florian Jaeger, a linguistics professor at the New York university's cognitive sciences department who was one of her academic advisers in 2007, pressured her to rent a room in his apartment for a year. — Maria Danilova, Houston Chronicle, "Universities face #MeToo movement over sexual harassment," 29 Dec. 2017 Shortly after finishing a linguistics Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1980, Ken Whistler was frustrated by the inability of mainframe computers to print the specialized phonetic symbols that linguists use. — Michael Erard, New York Times, "How the Appetite for Emojis Complicates the Effort to Standardize the World’s Alphabets," 18 Oct. 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'linguistics.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for linguistics
linguistics
noun
English Language Learners Definition of linguistics
: the study of language and of the way languages work
linguistics
noun
lin·guis·tics
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Kids Definition of linguistics
: the study of human speech including the nature, structure, and development of language or of a language or group of languages
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