[lan.guage] n [ME, fr. OF, fr. langue tongue, language, fr. L lingua--more at tongue] (14c) 1 a: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community b (1): audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2): a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (3): the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings "~ in their very gesture --Shak." (4): the means by which animals communicate (5): a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6): machine language 1
2. a: form or manner of verbal expression; specif: style b: the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge c: profanity
3: the study of language esp. as a school subject