Idiolect

//ˈɪd.i.əʊ̯.lɛkt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The language variant used by a specific individual.

    "She perfected the fictional idiolect, fashioning habits of speaking for even minor characters that rendered them utterly singular."

  2. 2
    the language or speech of one individual at a particular period in life wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
sociolect

Example

More examples

"Forensic linguists, recognizing that no two people use language in exactly the same way, will examine the idiolect of an extortion letter to determine authorship."

Etymology

From idio- + -lect.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.