Log in or Sign up
  1. lingua franca love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A medium of communication between peoples of different languages.
  2. n. A mixture of Italian with Provençal, French, Spanish, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish, formerly spoken on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

Wiktionary

  1. n. a common language used by people of diverse backgrounds to communicate with one another, often a basic form of speech with simplified grammar

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The commercial language of the Levant, -- a mixture of the languages of the people of the region and of foreign traders.
  2. n. Any hybrid or other language used over a wide area as a common or commercial tongue among peoples of different speech.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a common language used by speakers of different languages

Etymologies

  1. From Italian lingua franca ("Frankish language") (Wiktionary)
  2. Italian : lingua, language + franca, Frankish (that is, European). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Instead, they employed the well-established Commonwealth lingua franca known as symbospeech.”

    Running from the Deity

  • “France has some first-class multinationals, Germany's work force and engineering firms can compete with the world's best, 30 Swedish companies are listed among Forbes Global 2000, Italy is a world leader in design, Ireland is blessed with an educated work force that speaks English, the lingua franca of world trade.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Europe's Daily Soap Opera Keeps Rolling

  • “The boy's name was Anigh and, though he spoke the Melnibonéan-derived lingua franca of the Young Kingdoms, his accent was so thick it was sometimes impossible to understand all he said.”

    The Fortress of the Pearl

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

antonyms (1)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. vernacular

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. linguistic communication
  1. language

reverse dictionary (21)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. pistoiese
  2. his12
  3. Swahili
  4. Wolof
  1. Pitjantjatjara
  2. Sranantongo
  3. Lingala
  4. Koine
  1. Kongo
  2. Bislama
  3. Bambara
  4. Hindustani
  1. interlanguage
  2. peul
  3. -ful
  4. oregon jargon
  1. chinook jargon
  2. Fula
  3. Fulani
  4. Yakut
  1. Pidgin English

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. language

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘lingua franca’.

More lists containing ‘lingua franca’

Comments

No comments yet...

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

Tweets

Looking for tweets for lingua franca.

‘lingua franca’ has been looked up 2999 times, loved by 1 person, added to 21 lists, and is not a valid Scrabble word.