grammar

[gram-er]

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noun

the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed; morphology and syntax.

these features or constructions themselves: English grammar.

an account of these features; a set of rules accounting for these constructions: a grammar of English.

Generative Grammar. a device, as a body of rules, whose output is all of the sentences that are permissible in a given language, while excluding all those that are not permissible.

prescriptive grammar.

knowledge or usage of the preferred or prescribed forms in speaking or writing: She said his grammar was terrible.

the elements of any science, art, or subject.

a book treating such elements.

Origin of grammar

1325–75; Middle English gramery < Old French gramaire < Latin gramatica < Greek grammatikḕ (téchnē) grammatical (art); see -ar²

Related formsgram·mar·less, adjective

Can be confusedgrammar grandma grandmother

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for grammar

alphabet, syntax, stratification, structure, linguistics, elements, principles, accidence, morphology, tagmemics

Examples from the Web for grammar

Contemporary Examples of grammar

At his best, he was an inventor of part of the modern cinema's grammar.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Fade to Black: The Great Director’s Final Days
David Freeman
December 13, 2014
Fear of offending the grammar police can even produce a novel type of error called a hypercorrection.
Go Ahead, End With a Preposition: Grammar Rules We All Can Live With
Nick Romeo
November 3, 2014
When you approached T.I., London Grammar, and Fall Out Boy to do this, what was their initial response to it?
How Questlove Is Bringing Music Back to Television
Kevin Fallon
July 23, 2014
At one point did you think, “T.I., London Grammar, and Fall Out Boy together”?
How Questlove Is Bringing Music Back to Television
Kevin Fallon
July 23, 2014
What did those darned Muslims give us other than grammar and algebra?
Deconstructing David Brat’s ‘Scholarship’
Candida Moss
June 12, 2014

Historical Examples of grammar

In grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number.
The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce
The use of the pronoun, the disuse of the grammar pulled him up short.
The Incomplete Amorist
E. Nesbit
"But it's sure to be him," chattered Simms, his teeth as crazy as his grammar.
The Channings
Mrs. Henry Wood
Such may lie even in the region of grammar, or in the mere arrangement of a sentence.
A Dish Of Orts
George MacDonald
I do not care to dwell on my experience at the grammar school.
Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood
George MacDonald

British Dictionary definitions for grammar

grammar

noun

the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology, sometimes also phonology and semantics

the abstract system of rules in terms of which a person's mastery of his native language can be explained

a systematic description of the grammatical facts of a language

a book containing an account of the grammatical facts of a language or recommendations as to rules for the proper use of a language

the use of language with regard to its correctness or social propriety, esp in syntaxthe teacher told him to watch his grammar
(as modifier)a grammar book

the elementary principles of a science or artthe grammar of drawing

Derived Formsgrammarless, adjective

Word Origin for grammar

C14: from Old French gramaire, from Latin grammatica, from Greek grammatikē (tekhnē) the grammatical (art), from grammatikos concerning letters, from gramma letter

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for grammar

early 14c., gramarye (late 12c. in surnames), from Old French gramaire "learning," especially Latin and philology, "grammar, (magic) incantation, spells, mumbo-jumbo," "irregular semi-popular adoption" [OED] of Latin grammatica, from Greek grammatike tekhne "art of letters," with a sense of both philology and literature in the broadest sense, fem. adjective from gramma "letter," from stem of graphein "to draw or write" (see -graphy). An Old English word for it was stæfcræft.

Form grammar is from late 14c. Restriction to "rules of language" is a post-classical development, but as this type of study was until 16c. limited to Latin, Middle English gramarye also came to mean "learning in general, knowledge peculiar to the learned classes" (early 14c.), which included astrology and magic; hence the secondary meaning of "occult knowledge" (late 15c.), which evolved in Scottish into glamor (q.v.).

A grammar school (late 14c.) originally was "a school in which the learned languages are grammatically taught" [Johnson, who also has grammaticaster "a mean verbal pedant"]. In U.S. (1842) the term was put to use in the graded system for "a school between primary and secondary where English grammar is taught."

grammar in Culture

grammar

The rules for standard use of words. A grammar is also a system for classifying and analyzing the elements of language.