natural language

American  

[nach-er-uhl lang-gwigzh, nach-ruhl] / ˈnætʃ ər əl ˈlæŋ gwɪgʒ, ˈnætʃ rəl /

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): The search engine will return accurate results for keyword searches and natural language queries.

   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.

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natural language British  

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

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Etymology

Origin of natural language

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

Example Sentences

As an MIT computer-science professor, Regina Barzilay was used to living on the bleeding edge of innovation, teaching computers to understand words in the nascent field of natural language processing.

From MarketWatch

The retailer has been integrating different AI across departments and allows natural language control—which turns complex data into conversational tools for human workers, according to Chen.

From Barron's

After DeepSeek-R1 was launched earlier this month, the company boasted of "performance on par with" one of OpenAI's latest models when used for tasks such as maths, coding and natural language reasoning.

From BBC

After DeepSeek-R1 was launched earlier this month the company boasted of "performance on par with" one of ChatGPT maker OpenAI's latest models - when used for tasks such as maths, coding and natural language reasoning.

From BBC

In the audio part of the experiment, the patients participated in a question-and-answer session and several activities focused on reading and describing pictures to capture their natural language and cognitive state.

From Science Daily