▪ I. dialect
(ˈdaɪəlɛkt)
[a. F. dialecte (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), or ad. L. dialectus, Gr. διάλεκτος discourse, conversation, way of speaking, language of a country or district, f. διαλέγεσθαι to discourse, converse, f. δια- through, across + λέγειν to speak.]
1. Manner of speaking, language, speech; esp. a manner of speech peculiar to, or characteristic of, a particular person or class; phraseology, idiom.
| 1579 E. K. Ded. to Spenser's Sheph. Cal., Neither..must..the common Dialect and manner of speaking [be] so corrupted thereby, that [etc.]. 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuffe (1599) 41 By corruption of speech they false dialect and missesound it. 1638 Penit. Conf. vii. (1657) 191 Such a dialect which neither Men nor Angels understand. 1663 Butler Hud. i. i. 93 A Babylonish Dialect, Which learned Pedants much affect. 1740 J. Clarke Educ. Youth (ed. 3) 172 The Lawyer's Dialect would be too hard for him. 1805 Foster Ess. iv. iv. 163 Naturalized into the theological dialect by time and use. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. iii. vii. (1858) 155 Knowest thou no Prophet, even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? 1857 H. Reed Lect. Eng. Poets iii. 87 They lay aside the learned dialect and reveal the unknown powers of common speech. |
| fig. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. i. ii. 188 In her youth There is a prone and speechlesse dialect, Such as moue men. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Behaviour Wks. (Bohn) II. 384 The ocular dialect needs no dictionary. |
2. a. One of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom. (In relation to modern languages usually
spec. A variety of speech differing from the standard or literary ‘language’; a provincial method of speech, as in ‘speakers of dialect’.) Also in a wider sense applied to a particular language in its relation to the family of languages to which it belongs.
| 1577 Hanmer Anc. Eccles. Hist. 70 Certaine Hebrue dialectes. 1641 Raleigh Hist. World ii. 496 The like changes are very familiar in the Aeolic Dialect. 1635 E. Pagitt Christianogr. 73 The Slavon tongue is of great extent: of it there be many Dialects, as the Russe, the Polish, the Bohemick, the Illyrian..and others. 1716 Lond. Gaz. No. 5497/1 He made a Speech..which was answered by the Doge in the Genoese Dialect. 1794 S. Williams Vermont 200 A language may be separated into several dialects in a few generations. 1841 Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. iv. 203 Páli, or the local dialect of Maghada, one of the ancient kingdoms on the Ganges. 1847 Halliwell Dict. Eng. Dialects (1878) 17 The Durham dialect is the same as that spoken in Northumberland. 1873 Hale In His Name viii. 71 That dialect of rustic Latin which was already passing into Italian. |
b. attrib., as
dialect speech,
dialect speaker,
dialect poems,
dialect specimens;
dialect atlas,
geography: see
quots. 1933; hence
dialect-geographer,
dialect-geographical adj.| 1932 Missouri Alumnus Apr. 232/1 The American Council of Learned Societies is financing a Dialect Atlas of the United States and Canada. 1933 Bloomfield Lang. iii. 51 Dialect atlases, collections of maps of a speech area with isoglosses drawn in, are an important tool for the linguist. 1948 South. Folklore Q. Dec. 231 The project was..inspired by the great European dialect atlases. |
| 1929 Germanic Rev. I. 291 In 1898 Carl Haag introduced the term ‘Kernland⁓schaften’..into the treatment of dialect geography. 1933 Bloomfield Lang. xix. 321 The study of local differentiations in a speech-area, dialect geography, supplements the use of the comparative method. 1936 Language XII. 245 The dialect-geographers..have found variations. 1948 Neophilologus XXXII. 183 The results of the English dialect-geographical inquiry. |
† 3. = dialectic n.1 1.
Obs.| 1551 T. Wilson Logike (1580) 2 b, Logike otherwise called Dialecte (for thei are bothe one) is an Arte to trie the corne from the chaffe. 1677 Gale Crt. Gentiles II iv. 223 We may draw forth the force of this Platonic Argument, in Plato's own dialect thus. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. I. 395 He had a Tutor to teach him Grammar, and another Dialect. 1698 J. Fryer Acc. E. Ind. & P. 362 [They] teach Aristotle's Dialect, and the Four Figures of Syllogism. |
| attrib. 1761 Sterne Tr. Shandy IV. 35 The learned..busy in pumping her [Truth] up thro' the conduits of dialect induction. |
▪ II. [dialect, v. Explained as: To speak a dialect.
| 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuffe 41 By corruption of speech they false dialect and misse-sound it. [Here false is a vb. meaning to ‘falsify’, and dialect a noun. But 1881 Davies Suppl. Eng. Gloss. (quoting the above) has erron. entered dialect as a vb. Hence in some later Dicts.]] |