LINGUIST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does linguist mean? 

• LINGUIST (noun)
  The noun LINGUIST has 2 senses:

1. a specialist in linguistics

2. a person who speaks more than one language

  Familiarity information: LINGUIST used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LINGUIST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A specialist in linguistics

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

linguist; linguistic scientist

Hypernyms ("linguist" is a kind of...):

scientist (a person with advanced knowledge of one or more sciences)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "linguist"):

psycholinguist (a person (usually a psychologist but sometimes a linguist) who studies the psychological basis of human language)

sociolinguist (a linguist who studies the social and cultural factors that influence linguistic communication)

semanticist; semiotician (a specialist in the study of meaning)

phonologist (a specialist in phonology)

phonetician (a specialist in phonetics)

neurolinguist (someone trained in neuroscience and linguistics who studies brain processes during language production and reception)

lexicographer; lexicologist (a compiler or writer of a dictionary; a student of the lexical component of language)

Hebraist (linguist specializing in the Hebrew language)

grammarian; syntactician (a linguist who specializes in the study of grammar and syntax)

computational linguist (someone trained in computer science and linguistics who uses computers for natural language processing)

Instance hyponyms:

Bloomfield; Leonard Bloomfield (United States linguist who adopted a behavioristic approach to linguistics (1887-1949))

A. Noam Chomsky; Chomsky; Noam Chomsky (United States linguist whose theory of generative grammar redefined the field of linguistics (born 1928))

de Saussure; Ferdinand de Saussure; Saussure (Swiss linguist and expert in historical linguistics whose lectures laid the foundations for synchronic linguistics (1857-1913))

Firth; J. R. Firth; John Rupert Firth (English linguist who contributed to linguistic semantics and to prosodic phonology and who was noted for his insistence on studying both sound and meaning in context (1890-1960))

Grimm; Jakob Grimm; Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm (the older of the two Grimm brothers remembered best for their fairy stories; also author of Grimm's law describing consonant changes in Germanic languages (1785-1863))

Jakobson; Roman Jakobson; Roman Osipovich Jakobson (United States linguist (born in Russia) noted for his description of the universals of phonology (1896-1982))

Jens Otto Harry Jespersen; Jespersen; Otto Jespersen (Danish linguist (1860-1943))

Edward Sapir; Sapir (anthropologist and linguist; studied languages of North American Indians (1884-1939))

Derivation:

linguistic (of or relating to the scientific study of language)

linguistics (the humanistic study of language and literature)

linguistics (the scientific study of language)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who speaks more than one language

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

linguist; polyglot

Hypernyms ("linguist" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "linguist"):

transcriber; translator (a person who translates written messages from one language to another)

bilingual; bilingualist (a person who speaks two languages fluently)

Instance hyponyms:

Greenberg; Joseph Greenberg (United States linguist who studied the historical relations among 5,000 languages (1916-2001))

Harris; Zellig Harris; Zellig Sabbatai Harris (United States linguist (born in Ukraine) who developed mathematical linguistics and interpreted speech and writing in a social context (1909-1992))

Derivation:

linguistic (consisting of or related to language)

 Context examples 

Mr. Melas is a Greek by extraction, as I understand, and he is a remarkable linguist.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They were carefully examined, and showed that he was a keen student of international politics, an indefatigable gossip, a remarkable linguist, and an untiring letter writer.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect which this giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate linguist, for he could not speak of him save with trembling hands and a blanched cheek.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)