Word of the Day

idiolect \ID-ee-uh-lekt\,
noun:
a person's individual speech pattern. Compare dialect (def. 1).

Marvin Spevack's recent Shakespeare Thesaurus attempts to classify the whole of Shakespeare's vocabulary in order to reveal Shakespeare's idiolect: the linguistic system peculiar to Shakespeare."
-- William Shakespeare, introduction by Peter Hobley Davison, "Introduction," The First Quarto of King Richard III, 1996

That Elderly ambassador...had said "Avice Benner Cho, is it?" with a cadence so splendidly stilted it had become part of my internal idiolect, so whenever I introduced myself by my full name, a little is it? trailed the words in my head, in her voice.
-- China Miéville, "Embassytown," 2011

Idiolect is the blend of the Greek idio + legein literally meaning "personal speak."


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