LANGUAGE

noun see: tongue Date: 14th century 1. the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community, b. audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs, a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings, the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings , the means by which animals communicate, a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions, machine ~ 1, 2. form or manner of verbal expression, the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge, profanity , the study of ~ especially as a school subject, specific words especially in a law or regulation