speech community
Americannoun
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the aggregate of all the people who use a given language or dialect.
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a group of people geographically distributed so that there is no break in intelligibility from place to place.
noun
Etymology
Origin of speech community
First recorded in 1930–35
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.
At UCLA, she saw hip-hop as a speech community and a way for youth—particularly youth of color—to express themselves through music, art, dance and fashion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
“We create a speech community among our peers, and not across generations. So that generation that felt the slur will still feel it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2022
“And yet it is the lexicon, it is the vocabulary that is the most imitated and celebrated — but not with the African American speech community being given credit for it.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2022
The eyes of the free speech community are upon Texas this month.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2021
Linguists talk about the phenomenon of “accommodation”— which is the way in which we seek to adapt our own language to fit into a speech community.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
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.
