natural language

[ nach-er-uhl lang-gwigzh, nach-ruhl ]
See synonyms for natural language on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a language used as a native tongue by a group of speakers, as Arabic, English, Mandarin, etc.: Natural languages reflect cultural values like honesty or diplomacy in the manner and tone by which they communicate information.

  2. a language that has developed and evolved naturally, through use by human beings, as opposed to an invented or constructed language, as a computer programming language (often used attributively): Natural language is characterized by ambiguity that artificial intelligence struggles to interpret.The search engine will return accurate results for keyword searches and natural language queries.: Compare artificial language.

Origin of natural language

1
First recorded in 1770–75 for def. 1; 1960–65 for def. 2

Words Nearby natural language

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use natural language in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for natural language

natural language

noun
  1. a language that has evolved naturally as a means of communication among people: Compare artificial language, formal language

  2. languages of this kind considered collectively

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