VERNACULAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vernacular mean? 

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

1. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

2. the everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language)

  Familiarity information: VERNACULAR used as a noun is rare.

• VERNACULAR (adjective)
  The adjective VERNACULAR has 1 sense:

1. being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language

  Familiarity information: VERNACULAR used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VERNACULAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

argot; cant; jargon; lingo; patois; slang; vernacular

Context example:

they don't speak our lingo

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

non-standard speech (speech that differs from the usual accepted, easily recognizable speech of native adult members of a speech community)

Domain member usage:

wog ((offensive British slang) term used by the British to refer to people of color from Africa or Asia)

airhead (a flighty scatterbrained simpleton)

the shits; the trots (obscene terms for diarrhea)

juice (energetic vitality)

skinful (a quantity of alcoholic drink sufficient to make you drunk)

key (a kilogram of a narcotic drug)

big bucks; big money; bundle; megabucks; pile (a large sum of money (especially as pay or profit))

juice (electric current)

bite (a portion removed from the whole)

bad egg ((old-fashioned slang) a bad person)

boffin ((British slang) a scientist or technician engaged in military research)

tripper ((slang) someone who has taken a psychedelic drug and is undergoing hallucinations)

suit ((slang) a businessman dressed in a business suit)

squeeze ((slang) a person's girlfriend or boyfriend)

schlockmeister; shlockmeister ((slang) a merchant who deals in shoddy or inferior merchandise)

out-and-outer (someone who is excellent at something)

old man ((slang) boss)

guvnor ((British slang) boss)

good egg ((old-fashioned slang) a good person)

butch; dike; dyke ((slang) offensive term for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine)

freaky (strange and somewhat frightening)

drop-dead (extremely)

clean; plum; plumb (completely; used as intensifiers)

slam-bang (violent and sudden and noisy)

pint-size; pint-sized; runty; sawed-off; sawn-off (well below average height)

bolshy; stroppy (obstreperous)

mean (excellent)

some (remarkable)

grotty (very unpleasant or offensive)

butch ((of male or female homosexuals) characterized by stereotypically male traits or appearance)

uncool ((spoken slang) unfashionable and boring)

heebie-jeebies; jitters; screaming meemies (extreme nervousness)

can-do (marked by a willingness to tackle a job and get it done)

besotted; blind drunk; blotto; cockeyed; crocked; fuddled; loaded; pie-eyed; pissed; pixilated; plastered; slopped; sloshed; smashed; soaked; soused; sozzled; squiffy; stiff; tight; wet (very drunk)

square; straight (rigidly conventional or old-fashioned)

bunk off; play hooky (play truant from work or school)

chuck; ditch (throw away)

hoof (dance in a professional capacity)

feel (pass one's hands over the sexual organs of)

buy it; pip out (be killed or die)

give (occur)

bitch (an unpleasant difficulty)

shakedown (a very thorough search of a person or a place)

arse; arsehole; asshole; bunghole (vulgar slang for anus)

soup-strainer; toothbrush (slang for a mustache)

legs (staying power)

cert (an absolute certainty)

dreck; schlock; shlock (merchandise that is shoddy or inferior)

nick ((British slang) a prison)

Mickey Finn (slang term for knockout drops)

gat; rod (a gangster's pistol)

deck (street name for a packet of illegal drugs)

caff (informal British term for a cafe)

spic; spick; spik ((ethnic slur) offensive term for persons of Latin American descent)

square-bashing (drill on a barracks square)

dekko (British slang for a look)

hand job; jacking off; jerking off; wank (slang for masturbation)

blowjob; cock sucking (slang for fellatio)

ass; fuck; fucking; nookie; nooky; piece of ass; piece of tail; roll in the hay; screw; screwing; shag; shtup (slang for sexual intercourse)

power trip ((slang) a self-aggrandizing action undertaken simply for the pleasure of exercising control over other people)

shakedown (extortion of money (as by blackmail))

heist; rip-off (the act of stealing)

swiz (British slang for a swindle)

niff; pong (an unpleasant smell)

Boche; Hun; Jerry; Kraut; Krauthead (offensive term for a person of German descent)

Jap; Nip ((offensive slang) offensive term for a person of Japanese descent)

dago; ginzo; greaseball; Guinea; wop ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Italian descent)

Chinaman; chink ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Chinese descent)

hymie; kike; sheeny; yid ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a Jew)

Injun; red man; Redskin ((slang) offensive term for Native Americans)

honkey; honkie; honky; whitey ((slang) offensive names for a White man)

poor white trash; white trash ((slang) an offensive term for White people who are impoverished)

'hood; hood ((slang) a neighborhood)

nosh-up (a large satisfying meal)

burnup (a high-speed motorcycle race on a public road)

bun-fight; bunfight ((Briticism) a grand formal party on an important occasion)

dibs (a claim of rights)

skin flick (a pornographic movie)

applesauce; codswallop; folderol; rubbish; trash; tripe; trumpery; wish-wash (nonsensical talk or writing)

baloney; bilgewater; boloney; bosh; drool; humbug; taradiddle; tarradiddle; tommyrot; tosh; twaddle (pretentious or silly talk or writing)

hooey; poppycock; stuff; stuff and nonsense (senseless talk)

corker ((dated slang) a remarkable or excellent thing or person)

bay window; corporation; pot; potbelly; tummy (slang for a paunch)

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

street name (slang for something (especially for an illegal drug))

rhyming slang (slang that replaces words with rhyming words or expressions and then typically omits the rhyming component)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

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

non-standard speech (speech that differs from the usual accepted, easily recognizable speech of native adult members of a speech community)

Derivation:

vernacular (being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language)

• VERNACULAR (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language

Synonyms:

common; vernacular; vulgar

Context example:

the technical and vulgar names for an animal species

Similar:

informal (used of spoken and written language)

Derivation:

vernacular (the everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language))

 Context examples 

Of course, in common speech with the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled with errors, which was due to the vernacular itself; but in the few words he had held with me it had been clear and correct.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones—thruff-steans or through-stones, as they call them in the Whitby vernacular—actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Thus I was given to understand that he was the captain, the “Old Man,” in the cook’s vernacular, the individual whom I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow getting me ashore.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)