Vernacular Meaning
/vəˈnækjələ/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe language of a people or a national language.
nounEveryday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
Sentence Examples
He uttered an incomprehensible oath in the local vernacular before going on his way.
This is a vernacular.
I write Berber in its Kabyle vernacular form.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The book was written in the common ____, not in formal Latin.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The poet chose to write in the local ____, using the everyday language of the people in the small village today.
Word Origin & History
From Latin vernāculus (“domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves”), from verna (“a native, a home-born slave (one born in his master's house)”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"There are blacktips, silvertips, bronze whalers, black whalers, spinner sharks, and bignose sharks. These of course are vernacular names, but this is one case where the scientific nomenclature does not clarify the species, since it is now being revised."
— 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 111:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The book was written in the common ____, not in formal Latin.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The poet chose to write in the local ____, using the everyday language of the people in the small village today.