Isogloss
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A line on a map indicating the geographical boundaries of a linguistic feature.
"Bloch thinks (and we agree with him) that details of isogloss will probably not bear out this kind of grouping."
- 2 the locative boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature. wordnet
- 3 A linguistic feature shared between languages or language varieties, through any of various mechanisms, whether genetic inheritance or other linguistic forces.
"There was also a tendency to treat transitive verbs passively, as in Hurrian and Urarṭian; it must, however, be emphasized that this phenomenon may also be considered as an isogloss rather than as an indication of genetic relationship."
Example
More examples"Bloch thinks (and we agree with him) that details of isogloss will probably not bear out this kind of grouping."
Etymology
From iso- + gloss, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἴσος (ísos, “equal”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wi- (“to separate”)) + γλῶσσα (glôssa, “tongue; language”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *glōgʰs).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.