linguistics
- 1The scientific study of language, including its sounds, structure, meaning, and use.
Phonetics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech.
She switched her major from French to linguistics after one introductory course.
Note
The English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the name in 1847 from German Linguistik, joining linguist to the -ics of other fields of study. Like physics, it looks plural but takes a singular verb: linguistics is, not linguistics are. Its subject is how language works, which is a different thing from speaking many languages.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with linguistics, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
From linguist + -ics, related to linguistic and Latin linguisticus; coined by the English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell in 1847 from German Linguistik.