grammar

GRAM-er/ˈɡɹæm.ɚ/UKGRAM-uh/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/

10 meanings of grammar

1
language structurenouncountable or uncountable
The body of rules and principles that governs how a particular language, or human language as a whole, is put together.
The grammar of Japanese places the verb at the end of the clause.
Linguists have long asked whether all human grammars share a common core.
UsageSpelled with -ar at the end: grammar (not ~~incorrect: grammer~~). Say the grammar of a language, or English grammar.
Note
A grammar is one language's system (the grammar of Japanese, the grammars of the world), while grammar on its own means the system in general. Either way it describes how speakers actually build words and sentences rather than ruling on how they should, which is what separates it from the schoolroom rules of correctness.
2
correct usagenoununcountable
Notions, real or merely supposed, about the correct way to use a language.
Purists still insist it is bad grammar to end a sentence with a preposition.
The editor fixed the grammar but left the author's voice alone.
UsageTypical phrases: bad grammar, correct someone's grammar, a grammar mistake.
Similarusage
3
noununcountable
The study of the rules and principles that structure a language, or languages in general.
She studied grammar and phonology at the graduate level.
Traditional grammar sorts words into parts of speech such as nouns, verbs and adjectives.
UsageLike other school subjects it takes no article: study grammar, teach grammar.
4
language booknouncountable
A book that sets out the rules and structure of a particular language.
She spent years writing the first grammar of the island's language.
Every serious student of Latin keeps a good reference grammar on the desk.
UsageOften with the language or purpose: a Latin grammar, a reference grammar.
5
schoolnouncolloquialBritishcountable or uncountableabbreviationellipsis
Short for grammar school in informal British English: a state secondary school that admits pupils by an academic test, such as the eleven-plus.
He passed the eleven-plus and went up to the grammar in the autumn.
Half the lads from our street ended up at the grammar, the rest at the secondary modern.
UsageUsed with the: went up to the grammar, got into the grammar.
Note
In British talk the clipped form takes the article: he went up to the grammar, the academic secondary school entered by passing the 11-plus. In older American use the full phrase meant elementary school, and Grace Livingston Hill's The Patch of Blue (1932) clips that one with no article: I was in Grammar when he was in High.
6
basic principlesnounfigurativelycountable
The basic rules or principles that a field of knowledge or a particular skill is built on.
Early filmmakers had to invent a grammar of editing that audiences now take for granted.
The protests forced leaders to learn a new grammar of politics, built on social media rather than speeches.
UsageUsually a grammar of something: a grammar of editing, the new grammar of politics.
Similarlanguage
Note
It treats a field's working rules as a kind of language that has to be learned before anyone can act fluently in it, and it often comes with new when those rules are changing, as in Javier Solana and Daniel Innerarity's The New Grammar of Power (2011).
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
Javier Solana and Daniel Innerarity coauthored The New Grammar of Power, published in 2011. project-syndicate.org
7
computingnouncountable
A formal system of rules that specifies the syntax of a language, defining exactly which strings belong to it.
The parser generator reads a context-free grammar and produces code that recognizes the language.
Compiler writers often rewrite ambiguous grammars so that each program has only one parse.
Note
In computing theory a grammar is a set of rules that generates a language rather than a commentary on it. Its rules rewrite symbols: from a single start symbol, each rule swaps one piece for others until only the language's own characters remain, and every string reachable that way belongs to the language. Grammars are ranked by how much their rules may do, from regular through context-free to unrestricted, and a parser works out which rules would produce a given string.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
A formal grammar specifies a language's syntax through rules that generate its strings; it is also a description of that language. courses.cs.cornell.edu
Generation starts with a start symbol and applies rewriting rules to obtain strings containing only terminal symbols. web.stanford.edu
Every terminal string generated in this way belongs to the grammar's language. cs.lmu.edu
Grammars form a hierarchy according to restrictions on their rules, including regular, context-free, and unrestricted grammars. condor.depaul.edu
Bottom-up parsing reverses productions; top-down parsing starts with the start symbol and applies productions forward. web.stanford.edu

Less common meanings

8
textbooknounarchaicBritishcountable
A book setting out the basic rules or principles of a subject or skill; a textbook.
To turn this sort of mixture of a gossip and a gospel into anything like a grammar of Distributism has been quite impossible.
1926, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “VI: A Summary”
a grammar of geography
Note
Older British usage stretched the word from language to any subject, so a schoolbook could be a grammar of geography. G. K. Chesterton still reaches for it in The Outline of Sanity (1926), conceding that turning his mix of gossip and gospel into anything like a grammar of Distributism had proved impossible. Today the ordinary word is textbook; this one lends a deliberately old-fashioned ring.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
Older British usage allowed grammar to mean a textbook explaining a subject's rules or principles. en.wiktionary.org
A geography schoolbook could be called a grammar. archive.org
G. K. Chesterton wrote The Outline of Sanity, first published in 1926. openlibrary.org
Chesterton says that turning his mixture of gossip and gospel into a grammar of Distributism had proved impossible. shu.edu
9
verbobsoleteintransitive
To discourse in keeping with the rules of grammar; to use grammar.
She is in her Moods, and her Tenses: / I'll Grammar with you, / And make a trial how I can decline you
c. 1619, John Ford, “The Lawes of Candy”
Note
The verb is obsolete, and John Ford's use of it is a schoolroom pun. In The Lawes of Candy (written about 1620, printed 1647), a character finds a woman "in her Moods, and her Tenses" and offers to grammar with her and see how he can decline her: moods and tenses belong to verbs, declension to nouns.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
The verb sense is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
A character makes the quoted grammatical pun while addressing a woman. gutenberg.org
Grammatical mood belongs to verbs. en.wikipedia.org
Grammatical tenses are expressed through verb forms. en.wikipedia.org
Declension applies to nouns. en.wikipedia.org
10
noun
In cellular automata such as Conway's Game of Life, a set of small component patterns and the rules for combining them, used to assemble larger patterns such as oscillators, spaceships, and large still lifes.

Practice

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Origin

The root is Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- ("to carve, scratch"), which gave Ancient Greek gráphō ("write"), grámma ("line of writing") and grammatikḗ ("skilled in writing"). Latin took this as grammatica, altered in Vulgar Latin to an unrecorded *grammāria, and it reached English through Old French gramaire ("classical learning") and Middle English gramere. It pushed out the native Old English stæfcræft, and glamour, gramarye and grimoire are doublets.