bilingual
Other forms: bilinguals
Bilingual is an adjective that describes a person or community that speaks two languages. A bilingual woman might speak Spanish and English, and a part of town where people speak Mandarin and Polish is a bilingual neighborhood.
The prefix bi- means “having two,” and the Latin word lingua means “tongue, language,” so bilingual literally means “having two tongues.” It would be a mouthful to have two physical tongues, but luckily bilingual is for language tongues: the ability to speak two languages fluently. Bilingual is also a noun, and a person can be called a bilingual, like in the African country Chad, where the official languages are French and Arabic, and where many of the citizens are bilinguals.
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using or knowing two languages“bilingual education”
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Synonyms:
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multilingual
using or knowing more than one language
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multilingual
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a person who speaks two languages fluently
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synonyms:
bilingualist
/ˈbaɪˌlɪŋgwəl/
/baɪˈlɪŋgwəl/
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Vocabulary lists containing bilingual
Stories about pollinating frogs, picketing writers, and pesky seagulls all contributed words to this list of vocabulary from the week's news.
Eighth-grader Kevin can't help telling lies but when the lies pile up and get him into big trouble, he has to find a way to make things right — and end his lying streak.
This classic tale tells the story of the Clock family, a group of tiny people who live under the floorboards of a grandfather clock, and survive by sneakily "borrowing" food and small items from the humans who live in the house.
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