vocabulary
Pluralvocabularies
- 1The full set of words that a particular person knows and uses.
Her French vocabulary is good enough for shopping but not for business meetings.
Children's vocabularies expand rapidly once they start reading on their own.
- 2All the words of a language, taken together.
Trade and conquest left their mark on the vocabulary of every language in the region.
Linguists compare the basic vocabularies of related languages to see how far apart they have grown.
Similarlexicon
- 3The set of words used in a particular field or subject.
Students must master the vocabulary of contract law before the second semester.
The vocabularies of sailing and aviation share a surprising number of terms.
Similarterminology, jargon, language, lexicon
- 4A list of words, usually alphabetized and explained, covering a particular field or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning.
Each unit ends with a vocabulary listing the new terms and their English meanings.
The museum guide includes a short vocabulary of architectural terms at the back.
- 5A range of artistic or stylistic forms or techniques, such as those an artist or a style draws on.
The architect's vocabulary of glass, steel and open space appears in every building she designs.
Early filmmakers had to invent a visual vocabulary of close-ups, cuts and fades.
Similarrepertoire, language, idiom
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of vocabulary apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
A learned borrowing from Medieval Latin vocābulārium. It is a doublet of vocabularium.