Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Dialect

Di′a·lect (dī′ȧ·lĕkt), n. [F. dialecte, L. dialectus, fr. Gr. διάλεκτος, fr. διαλέγεσθαι to converse, discourse. See Dialogue.] 1. Means or mode of expressing thoughts; language; tongue; form of speech.

This book is writ in such a dialect As may the minds of listless men affect. Bunyan. The universal dialect of the world. South.

2. The form of speech of a limited region or people, as distinguished from ether forms nearly related to it; a variety or subdivision of a language; speech characterized by local peculiarities or specific circumstances; as, the Ionic and Attic were dialects of Greece; the Yorkshire dialect; the dialect of the learned.

In the midst of this Babel of dialects there suddenly appeared a standard English language. Earle.

[Charles V.] could address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect. Prescott.

Syn. — Language; idiom; tongue; speech; phraseology. See Language, and Idiom.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.