释义 |
vernacular, a. and n.|vəˈnækjʊlə(r)| Also 7 vernaculer. [f. L. vernācul-us domestic, native, indigenous (hence It. vernacolo, Pg. vernaculo), f. verna a home-born slave, a native. The Latin adj. occurs in a large variety of applications; the restricted use common in English is represented by vernacula vocabula in Varro.] A. adj. 1. That writes, uses, or speaks the native or indigenous language of a country or district.
1601Bp. W. Barlow Defence 2 A vernaculer pen-man..hauing translated them into English. 1715M. Davies Athen. Brit. I. 77 The Office of the Virgin Mary..is Translated also in most Languages for the Use of the Vernacular Romanists. 1716Ibid. III. 38 The Learned vernacular Editor of Hippocrates's Works in French, Mr. Dacier. 1819W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. XLVII. 30 The vernacular public remained unmoved, and gazed at the labours of authorship, as Londoners at the opera. 1869Freeman Norm. Conq. (1875) III. xii. 145 The vernacular poet more kindly helps us to the real names. 2. a. Of a language or dialect: That is naturally spoken by the people of a particular country or district; native, indigenous. Usu. applied to the native speech of a populace, in contrast to another or others acquired for commercial, social, or educative purposes; now freq. employed with reference to that of the working classes or the peasantry.
c1645Howell Lett. II. lvi. 78 The Welsh..is one of the fourteen vernacular and independent tongues of Europ. 1697Bentley Phalaris (1699) 316 Being Dorians born, [they] repudiated their vernacular Idiom for that of the Athenians. 1715M. Davies Athen. Brit. I. Pref. 35 They don't understand their Breviaries and Mass-Books, not..when translated and expounded in their respective vernacular Tongues. 1832G. Downes Cont. Countries I. 197 The congregation here being chiefly peasants, and artisans, a sermon was delivered in the vernacular dialect. 1858Gladstone Homer II. ii. 50 When the Chaldee tongue became the vernacular, and the old Hebrew disappeared from common use. 1874H. R. Reynolds John Bapt. v. §3. 338 There were ‘voices’..which expressed in some vernacular idiom of Hebrew or Greek the thoughts of the Almighty. transf.1778Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry II. 50 They much improved the vernacular style by the use of this exotic phraseology. 1785European Mag. VIII. 467 Several passages are modulations on the vernacular airs of Otaheite. 1850Ecclesiologist XI. 176 Even Rome, then, cannot consistently blame words to the vernacular Gregorian melodies. b. In predicative use. Also with preps.
1808Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) I. 103/2 The Scriptures translated into the Tamulic language, which is vernacular in the southern parts of the peninsula. 1835Macaulay in Trevelyan Compet. Wallah (1866) 321 The intellectual improvement of those classes..can at present be effected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them. 1856Mrs. Stowe Dred II. xxxii. 323 He commenced a speech in that peculiar slang dialect which was vernacular with them. 1870Anderson Missions Amer. Bd. III. iv. 52 The Arab-speaking race..must receive the gospel mainly from those to whom the language is vernacular. c. Coupled with the name of the language.
1775Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry (1870) 61 The vernacular English, as I have..remarked, was rough and unpolished. 1840Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. ii. Lay St. Aloys, The ‘Requiem’ was sung; Not vernacular French, but a classical tongue. 1864G. W. Dasent Jest & Earnest (1873) II. 10 The vernacular Anglo-Saxon before the Conquest was undergoing that change which all languages suffer. 1883Froude in Contemp. Rev. XLIV. 18 He [Luther] began to translate the Bible into clear vernacular German. 3. a. Of literary works, etc.: Written or spoken in, translated into, the native language of a particular country or people.
1661Glanvill Van. Dogm. 156 Though, in Greek or Latine, they amuse us, yet a vernacular translation unmasks them. 1716M. Davies Athen. Brit. III. 20 Dr. Harvey's Family-Physician, and most of Will. Salmon's Books, with other such like Vernacular Pharmacy. 1788Warburton Tracts (1789) 170 Long vernacular Sermons from Dr. Parr. 1841D'Israeli Amen. Lit. Pref. (1859) p. iii, A history of our vernacular literature has occupied my studies for many years. 1868J. H. Blunt Ref. Ch. Eng. I. 495 Vernacular prayer-books had, indeed, been long known in England. 1874Green Short Hist. i. §5. (1876) 49 The Chronicle remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people. b. Performed in the native language.
1874A. Somerville Lect. Missions xiii. 243 A paper which he read on Vernacular Preaching at the Ootacamund Missionary Conference. 4. a. Of words, etc.: Of or pertaining to, forming part of, the native language.
1716M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 174 This Ralph is call'd also Roger, the Latin name, Ranulphus, being possibly capable of both those Vernacular Appropriations. 1728Pope Dunc. i. Notes, Which being a French and foreign termination, is no way proper to a word entirely English and vernacular. 1788V. Knox Winter Even. xxii. (1790) I. 193 Brown..preferred polysyllabic expressions derived from the language of ancient Rome, to his vernacular vocabulary. 1816Scott Old Mort. Peroration, O, ignorance! as if the vernacular article of our mother English were capable of declension! 1848Gallenga Italy I. ii. 146 Low-born vernacular idioms were handed down to posterity as the poet's creation. 1864Bryce Holy Rom. Emp. xv. (1875) 257 Whose official style of Augustus, as well as the vernacular name of ‘Kaiser’ [etc.]. b. Native or natural to a particular language.
1844Proc. Philol. Soc. I. 176 The finding an isolated term in an Anglo-Saxon or German vocabulary by no means proves it to be vernacular to that language. 5. Connected or concerned with the native language.
1845Stocqueler Handbk. Brit. India (1854) 234 The southern side of the building is appropriated to the vernacular department, and the northern to the English. 1883R. B. Smith Life Ld. Lawrence II. 535 Efforts were made to extend vernacular education. 6. Of arts, or features of these: Native or peculiar to a particular country or locality. spec. in vernacular architecture, architecture concerned with ordinary domestic and functional buildings rather than the essentially monumental.
1857G. G. Scott Remarks Secular & Domestic Archit. p. ix, I want to call attention to the meanness of our vernacular architecture, and to the very partial success which has hitherto attended the attempts at its improvement. Ibid. 6 Look at the vernacular cottage-building of the day. a1878― Lect. Archit. (1879) II. 315 The revived knowledge of the architecture of Greece rudely disturbed the vernacular style derived from Rome. 1893Harper's Weekly 21 Oct. 1011/2 The theatre is a big, rather bare room, apparently of vernacular Javanese construction. 1939Country Life 11 Feb. 154/2 It is as delightful an example as one could find of Georgian vernacular architecture. 1976[see spinning vbl. n. 7 c]. 1977Dædalus Summer 3 The studies of so-called vernacular architecture (like barns) no longer seem eccentric in an atmosphere in which architecture can be defined not in terms of monuments but as any changes at all that man makes in his environment. †7. Of diseases: Characteristic of, occurring in, a particular country or district; endemic. Obs.
1666G. Harvey Morb. Angl. i. (1672) 2 Which instances do evidently bring a Consumption under the notion of a Pandemick, or Endemick, or rather a Vernacular Disease to England. 1728Chambers Cycl. s.v., Diseases which reign most in any particular Nation, Province, or District, are called Vernacular Diseases. 8. Of a slave: That is born on his master's estate; home-born. rare—1.
1804W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. II. 326 A disposition to use kindly, and to emancipate frequently, the vernacular slave. 9. Personal, private.
1840G. S. Faber Regen. 38, I was favouring my evil propensities, as if they were specially my own vernacular property. B. n. 1. a. The native speech or language of a particular country or district (see A. 2); also, the informal, colloquial, or distinctive speech of a people or a group. Cf. sense 1 b below.
a1706Evelyn Hist. Relig. (1850) I. 427 It is written in the Chaldaeo-Syriac, which was..the vernacular of our Lord. 1840Barham Ingol. Leg. Pref., Mr. Maguire,..in his account of the late Coronation, retains his own rich vernacular. 1864Burton Scot Abr. II. i. 94 Even within the native stronghold of the Dutch vernacular. 1874Sayce Compar. Philol. v. 179 A child can learn as readily the vernacular of Canton as the language of London. 1925F. N. Scott in McNaught's Monthly Mag. May 144 (heading) English and American vernacular. 1930G. B. Shaw Admirable Bashville 89 With the advent of compulsory education sixty years ago,..newspapers and plays alike soon came to be written by illiterate masters of the vernacular. 1984Gainesville (Florida) Sun 28 Mar. 7b/2 Observe feminist vernacular: Call it a ‘personhole cover’. transf.1807W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. V. 575 By neglecting the vernacular in idea, he has missed in part the advantage of home praise and hereditary sympathy. b. Freq. in phr. in the vernacular. Cf. sense 1 a above.
1815J. C. Hobhouse Substance Lett. (1816) I. 176 The court confessor in his sermon at St. Denis..took the opportunity of what is called in the vernacular preaching at the Duke of Orleans. 1856G. W. Dasent Jest & Earnest (1873) I. 337 The performance of the services of religion in Latin, and no longer as of old in the vernacular. 1889Jessopp Coming of Friars i. 37 Of the five..no one of them was qualified as yet to preach in the vernacular. 1975L. Gillen Return to Deepwater iv. 62 In the vernacular,..I couldn't care less what you do. c. Without article. (Cf. next.)
1857Hughes Tom Brown i. i, Repeating in true sing-song vernacular the legend of St. George and his fight. 1882B. D. W. Ramsay Recoll. Mil. Serv. I. i. 25 The fair songstress opened upon me such a volley of choice Tuscan vernacular, that I fairly fled. 2. With a and pl. A native or indigenous language.
1715M. Davies Athen. Brit. I. 325 Charles the Fifth, King of France, order'd the Bible to be translated..in the Picardian and Norman Vernaculars. a1734North Lives (1826) III. 322 Latin, and the vernaculars westward,..carry nearly the same idiom. 1850S. Dobell Roman vii, The wayfarer Of many lands is not responsible For each vernacular. 1882Athenæum 4 Mar. 280 Some of the peoples and tribes whose vernaculars that class comprises. 1892Times 24 Dec. 3/1 Spain, destined to be for long the most active enemy of the circulation of the Scriptures in modern vernaculars. 3. transf. The phraseology or idiom of a particular profession, trade, etc.
1876Tait Rec. Adv. Phys. Science vi. 151 To use the vernacular of engineers. 1891Century Mag. May 128/2 On the bar we found friends that we had made in Panama, who had preceded us a few days, long enough to speak the vernacular of mining. 4. A vernacular style of building. Cf. sense A. 6 above.
1910Encycl. Brit. II. 436/1 The culture of the ‘Queen Anne’ type of architecture..presented a simple vernacular of construction and detail. 1967Listener 7 Sept. 292/3 What was normally North American about these houses..was their general internal planning..an open-plan vernacular that still works well today. 1977M. Girouard Sweetness & Light ii. 25 They came back to London to design buildings in which Gothic merged into farmhouse vernacular. Hence verˈnacularness. rare—0.
1727Bailey (vol. II), Vernacularness, Properness, or Peculiarness to one's own Country. |