Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One's native language.
  • noun A parent language.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One's native language.
  • noun A tongue or language to which other languages owe their origin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one's native language.
  • noun The language spoken by one’s ancestors.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next

Etymologies

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