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world language

British  

noun

  1. a language spoken and known in many countries, such as English

  2. an artificial language for international use, such as Esperanto

"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

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.

In the United States, there is still no national standard for learning a world language, which is vastly different from how second languages are taught in some other countries.

From Salon • Jan. 18, 2026

Foremost Nigerian author Chinua Achebe put it best when he said: "The price a world language must be prepared to make is submission to different kinds of use."

From BBC • Sep. 8, 2023

Payne-Elliott had worked for 13 years as a world language and social studies teacher at Cathedral High School.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 24, 2021

Because illiteracy tends to correlate with lack of schooling and thus the inability to speak a common world language, speech technology is not available to those who need it the most.

From Scientific American • Feb. 1, 2021

But in that other world language shall be exactly coexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate to meaning.

From Gala-days by Hamilton, Gail