Speechlore

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The science, study, or knowledge of language or speech; linguistics. uncountable

    "I know it may be said that place names are very unsafe ground, as they are mostly taken by wild casts of thought ; but the truth is that they are more or less trustworthy, as they are taken upon wider or narrower grounds of speechlore."

  2. 2
    Philology; grammar. nonce-word, uncountable

    "After the publication of Redecraft, nearly all William Barnes's literary energies were given to "Speechlore," as he called Philology."

Synonyms

All synonyms
linguisticslinguistics

Example

More examples

"I know it may be said that place names are very unsafe ground, as they are mostly taken by wild casts of thought ; but the truth is that they are more or less trustworthy, as they are taken upon wider or narrower grounds of speechlore."

Etymology

From speech + lore.

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