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  1. polyglot love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Speaking, writing, written in, or composed of several languages.
  2. n. A person having a speaking, reading, or writing knowledge of several languages.
  3. n. A book, especially a Bible, containing several versions of the same text in different languages.
  4. n. A mixture or confusion of languages.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Using or containing many languages; many-languaged: as, a polyglot lexicon or Bible.
  2. n. A book containing in parallel columns versions of the same text in several different languages. The most important polyglots are editions of the Bible in which the original Hebrew and Greek texts are given along with the chief versions in other languages. The chief polyglots are—the London polyglot (published in 1657), giving versions in whole or in part in Hebrew, Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Latin, etc.; the Complutensian polyglot (see Complutensian); and the Antwerp and Paris polyglots. A recent collection is Bagster's polyglot
  3. n. One who understands or uses many languages.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Versed in, or speaking, many languages.
  2. adj. Containing, or made up of, several languages.
  3. adj. Comprising various linguistic groups
  4. n. One who masters, notably speaks, several languages.
  5. n. A publication containing several versions of the same text, or the same subject matter in several languages; especially, the Bible in several languages.
  6. n. A mixture of langages and/or nomenclatures
  7. n. programming A program written in multiple programming languages.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Containing, or made up, of, several languages.
  2. adj. Versed in, or speaking, many languages.
  3. n. rare One who speaks several languages.
  4. n. A book containing several versions of the same text, or containing the same subject matter in several languages; esp., the Scriptures in several languages.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. having a command of or composed in many languages
  2. n. a person who speaks more than one language

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek πολύγλωττος (poluglōttos, "many-tongued, polyglot"), from πολύς (polus, "many") + γλῶττα (glōtta, "tongue, language") (Attic variant of γλῶσσα (glōssa)). (Wiktionary)
  2. French polyglotte, from Greek poluglōttos : polu-, poly- + glōtta, tongue, language. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “By the way, the term polyglot from its Greek roots literally means many tongues.”

    Planet Python

  • “A polyglot is a speaker of two or more languages, and a hyperglot a speaker of six or more.”

    Web Translations » Blog Archive » Language learning: how much is too much?

  • “Later he speaks to her in polyglot Chinook and insists she come home with him.”

    “There be things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice.”

  • “Joyce, living through the next decade in polyglot Trieste, finished the Portrait and began Ulysses in 1914.”

    James Joyce

  • “Cal Galbraith crossed over with great strides, angrily, and spoke to Madeline in polyglot Chinook.”

    The Wife of the King

  • “The energy keeps rising as the music does, as if there might be no other place in the world worth being at than this fashion party in the Centro Histórico of Mexico City with hundreds of familiar strangers—some Mexican, some British, some American, some a mixture of Mexican, and others of Latin American polyglot heritage.”

    Simon & Schuster: Down and Delirious in Mexico City

  • “This is an essential, engaging discussion for those interested in learning more about JRuby and the trend toward what Ford calls polyglot programming.”

    JRuby Podcast on JavaWorld

  • “- Being a polyglot is a good thing -- we are not language bigots.”

    jobs.joelonsoftware.com

  • “He'd got rid of his Luna accent, too, carefully cultivating an English one that was a kind of polyglot of cinema Cockney, late twentieth-century Transatlantic, and Liverpudlian.”

    The Life of the World to Come

  • “As the faiths spread, translations of sacred texts were needed; complex "polyglot" editions developed in which translations might appear in columns beside the original text or interwoven between its lines.”

    NYT > Home Page

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equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘polyglot’

  1. multilingual

same context (21)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. semibarbarous
  2. Mayan
  3. parleying
  4. mongrel
  1. heterogeneous
  2. non-possessed
  3. mythologist
  4. Berber
  1. gabby
  2. leaderless
  3. xenologist
  4. biogeographical
  1. self-pronouncing
  2. bilingual
  3. hedge fund
  4. ragtag
  1. asw
  2. ethnologist
  3. one-volume
  4. cachinnation
  1. heathenish

reverse dictionary (5)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. polyglottist
  1. octapla
  1. polyglottous
  1. polyglot
  1. calepine

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‘polyglot’ has been looked up 3973 times, loved by 11 people, added to 116 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 14.