bilingual

American  

[bahy-ling-gwuhl, -ling-gyoo-uhl] / baɪˈlɪŋ gwəl, -ˈlɪŋ gju əl /

adjective

1. able to speak two languages with the facility of a native speaker.

2. spoken, written, or containing similar information in two different languages.

   a bilingual dictionary; Public notices at the embassy are bilingual.

3. of, involving, or using two languages.

   a bilingual community; bilingual schools.

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noun

1. a bilingual person.

bilingual British  

/ baɪˈlɪŋɡwəl /

adjective

1. able to speak two languages, esp with fluency

2. written or expressed in two languages

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noun

1. a bilingual person

Usage

What does bilingual mean? Bilingual is most commonly used to describe someone who can speak or understand two languages, especially with some level of fluency. It can also be used to describe things that involve or that are written or spoken in two languages, as in These instructions are bilingual—they’re written in English and Spanish. The similar terms trilingual and multilingual are used in the same way, with trilingual indicating three languages and multilingual indicating more than two and especially several languages. The ability to speak two languages or the use of two languages is called bilingualism. Example: Being bilingual is a great advantage for many job seekers.

Other Word Forms

• bilingualism
  noun
• bilingually
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of bilingual

1835–45; < Latin bilingu ( is ) ( bi- bi- ¹ + lingu-, stem of lingua tongue + -is adj. suffix) + -al ¹

Explanation

Bilingual is an adjective that describes a person or community that speaks two languages. A bilingual woman might speak Spanish and English, and a part of town where people speak Mandarin and Polish is a bilingual neighborhood. The prefix bi- means “having two,” and the Latin word lingua means “tongue, language,” so bilingual literally means “having two tongues.” It would be a mouthful to have two physical tongues, but luckily bilingual is for language tongues: the ability to speak two languages fluently. Bilingual is also a noun, and a person can be called a bilingual, like in the African country Chad, where the official languages are French and Arabic, and where many of the citizens are bilinguals.

Example Sentences

As opposed to about half of the people in the world, who are bilingual, most of us know only one language — and even then, only kinda-sorta.

From Salon • Jul. 6, 2026

It was part of a broader bilingual policy adopted in the 1960s, which stipulated English to be spoken by all Singaporeans, along with their "mother tongue", a language determined by their ethnicity.

From BBC • Jun. 25, 2026

Metro documents show extensive outreach: tens of thousands of notices distributed, community meetings, bilingual materials, targeted engagement with limited-English-proficiency residents.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 28, 2026

Translated word for word, they become something parseable only by a bilingual transportation engineer, not by the people the projects are supposed to serve.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 28, 2026

She knew Jake would be useless helping her with her bilingual language skills.

From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein