NATIVE LANGUAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does native language mean? 

• NATIVE LANGUAGE (noun)
  The noun NATIVE LANGUAGE has 1 sense:

1. the language that a person has spoken from earliest childhood

  Familiarity information: NATIVE LANGUAGE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NATIVE LANGUAGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The language that a person has spoken from earliest childhood

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("native language" is a kind of...):

language; linguistic communication (a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols)

 Context examples 

The participants averaged 58 years of age and used English as their native language.

(Brain Mapping of Language Impairments, NIH)

Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Mr. Kirwin alone understood me; but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to affright the other witnesses.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)