linguist
nounAU, CA, US, UK /ˈlɪŋɡwɪst/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin lingua (“language”) + -ist.
1
One who studies linguistics.
2
Usually One who studies modern-day linguistics, that is, linguistic science.
- President Donald Trump has "turned words into weapons" -- and journalists are providing additional ammunition. That's according to Trump critic George Lakoff, a renowned linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.2018 June 15, Julia Waldow, “George Lakoff says this is how Trump uses words to con the public”, in CNN Business, archived from the original on 17 Feb 2025:
- The internet serves as an accelerant to fanilects. Because song lyrics are readily available online, they have a characteristic linguists call "persistence," meaning anyone can refer to them and reuse them.2023 February 3, Pia Ceres, “Quoting Taylor Swift Lyrics Is an Actual Linguistic Thing”, in Wired, San Francisco, C.A.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 May 2023:
3
A person skilled in languages.
- I found that he could write and read English, but could not speak it, being like myself a bad linguist; so we had to use French as a medium of communication.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 458:
- The words of these songs were either without meaning, or derived from an idiom with which Watt, a very fair linguist, had no acquaintance.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
4
A human translator; an interpreter, especially in the armed forces.
- Synonyms
- linguist
- Derived terms
27 terms
anthropolinguist, bilinguist, co-linguist, colinguist, comparative linguist, cryptolinguist, cunning linguist, Eurolinguist, geolinguist, linguister, linguistic, linguistics, linguistry, metalinguist, missionary-linguist, missionary linguist, monolinguist, multilinguist, neolinguist, neurolinguist, nonlinguist, polylinguist, sign linguist, slanguist, trilinguist, unilinguist, xenolinguist- Related terms
- lingua, linguaphile, multilingual, polyglot, prescriptivist, scholar, philologist, linguistics, language