vernacular

1. 1

   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.
2. 2

   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.
3. 3

   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.
4. 4

   A language lacking standardization or a written form.

5. 5

   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.
6. 6

   A style of architecture involving local building materials and styles; not imported.

1. 1

   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
2. 2

   Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or by nature.

   • Near-synonyms: native, indigenous; endemic
   • a vernacular disease
3. 3

   Of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported.

4. 4

   Connected to a collective memory; not imported.

5. 5

   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.

ant. unvernacular