linguist
Americannoun
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a person who has the capacity to learn and speak foreign languages
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a person who studies linguistics
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the spokesman for a chief
Etymology
Origin of linguist
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin lingu(a) “tongue, speech” + -ist
Explanation
A linguist is someone who studies language. Linguists study every aspect of language, including vocabulary, grammar, the sound of language, and how words evolve over time. The study of language is called linguistics, and people who study linguistics are linguists. Being a linguist isn't easy; you usually have to go to graduate school and conduct research about a specific aspect of language. There are computational linguists, forensic linguists, comparative linguists, and many other specialties. If you love language, you'd probably enjoy a career as a linguist.
Vocabulary lists containing linguist
This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for February 22–February 28, 2026
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ist
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"Teen Slang" – "Is Money Affecting Your Social Status?”
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The foreign ministry said the family of linguist and researcher Dennis Coyle had written to the supreme leader of Afghanistan, asking that he be released and pardoned for Eid.
From Barron's • Mar. 24, 2026
In 2020, photographer Caitlin O’Hara snapped linguist Rachid Baligh of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Marrakesh, Morocco, with his family, his 2015 Ural cT motorcycle, and his miniature schnauzer, Lola, in the Arizona desert.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025
Solares died in 1923 at 81, but left wax cylinder recordings of Chumash songs, stories and translations with linguist and Native American language ethnologist John Peabody Harrington.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 25, 2025
"Interestingly, low scoring essays showed the highest level of complexity in finite adverbial dependent clauses," the linguist writes in her paper.
From Science Daily • Jun. 18, 2024
One might initially wonder how a linguist, studying only modern languages whose unwritten ancestral forms remain unknown, could ever figure out whether Austronesians living on Taiwan 6,000 years ago had pigs.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
