grammar
/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.17 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Because real lexicons are big and complex, from a software engineering perspective it is best to write simple grammars that have a simple, well-defined way, of pulling out the information they need from vast lexicons. That is, grammars should be thought of as separate entities which can access the information contained in lexicons. We can then use specialised mechanisms for efficiently storing the lexicon and retrieving data from it."
- "We must learn a new grammar of power in a world that is made up more of the common good – or the common bad – than of self-interest or national interest."
- "a grammar of geography"
- "To turn this sort of mixture of a gossip and a gospel into anything like a grammar of Distributism has been quite impossible."
- "He’s the old man’s only son. Some baby! Yep, right behind ya. Nope, he donno me. I was in Grammar when he was in High."
- "Hickerson has a computer program which found a spaceship with speed c/3. In fact a whole grammar of them."
Etymology
From Middle English gramere, from Old French gramaire (“classical learning”), from unattested Vulgar Latin *grammāria, an alteration of Latin grammatica, from Ancient Greek γραμματική (grammatikḗ, “skilled in writing”), from γράμμα (grámma, “line of writing”), from γράφω (gráphō, “write”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). Displaced native Old English stæfcræft; a doublet of glamour, glamoury, gramarye, and grimoire. Piecewise doublet of grammatic.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *gerbʰ-, gramere, gramaire, *grammāria, grammatica, γραμματική
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/
- British English: /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/