polylingual
Americanadjective
Usage
What does polylingual mean? Polylingual is most commonly used to describe someone who can speak or understand multiple languages, especially someone who can speak several languages with some level of fluency. A more commonly used synonym is multilingual. The term bilingual is commonly used to describe someone who speaks two languages, and trilingual is used to describe someone who speaks three. Polylingual can also be used to describe things that involve or that are written or spoken in multiple languages, as in These instructions are polylingual—they’re written in seven different languages. Example: Being polylingual is a great advantage when applying for international jobs.
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.
Jazz is a family of languages, and Mr. Dingman is polylingual.
From New York Times • Jun. 20, 2011
When the protean Peter Ustinov�actor, author, director and polylingual wit �undertook to break into opera a few years ago, as director of Mozart's difficult Magic Flute, music critics were scandalized by his nerve.
From Time Magazine Archive
Eight songs of nostalgia, avarice and calculated mischief, with polylingual Songstress Kitt sounding equally enticing in English, Swahili, French and Turkish.
From Time Magazine Archive
But like Eddie Rickenbacker's famed Hat-in-the-Ring outfit of World War I, and its forefather, the polylingual Lafayette Escadrille, A.V.G. would live as yarns told in bars, in books, in celluloid.
From Time Magazine Archive
They had sworn themselves to secrecy, had heard MacLeod's story with a polylingual burst of pious or blasphemous exclamations, and then they had scattered, each to the work assigned him.
From The Mercenaries by Piper, H. Beam
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.
