Word
linguist
Phoneticslin·guist
US/ˈɫɪŋɡwɪst/
UK/lˈɪŋɡwɪst/
Definition
n. a person who studies how languages work, including how people speak, write, and understand them.
n. a person who studies the structure, development, and use of human languages. Often focuses on the scientific analysis of grammar, phonetics, and semantics.
Examples
“The linguist studies how children learn to speak.”
“A professional linguist was hired to help the company design a more effective translation software.”
“By examining the subtle shifts in regional dialects, the linguist reconstructed the historical migration patterns of the population over several centuries.”
Examples
simple
“The linguist studies how children learn to speak.”
contextual
“A professional linguist was hired to help the company design a more effective translation software.”
complex
“By examining the subtle shifts in regional dialects, the linguist reconstructed the historical migration patterns of the population over several centuries.”
Real-World Examples
“Biologists and linguists alike have long puzzled over the universal human tendency to see and name colors as a combination of four "pure" hues—red, yellow, green and blue.” “Created by linguist Mark Okrand in the 1980s for the TV series Star Trek, it was deliberately designed to sound like an alien language.” Etymology
Etymology tree Latin lingua English -ist English linguist Borrowed from Latin lingua (“language”) + -ist.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
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Scan code
englishreference.com/q/linguist