dialect
/ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/noun
dialect is spelled D-I-A-L-E-C-T: 7 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, dialect means “A lect (often a regional or minority language) as part of a group or family of languages, especially if they are viewed as a single language, or if…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dialect is dialects.
How many letters and syllables are in dialect?
| Letters | 7: D-I-A-L-E-C-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words; the 14,106th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is dialect?
Dialect appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dialect?
- US /ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/
- Australia /ˈdɑe.əˌlekt/
- [ˈdɑe̯.əˌlekt]
Dialect has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dialect.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with dialect?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as dialect (/aɪəlɛkt/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: citadel, deltaic.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of dialect
- dialects plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dialect mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A lect (often a regional or minority language) as part of a group or family of languages, especially if they are viewed as a single language, or if contrasted with a standardized idiom that is considered the 'true' form of the language (for example, Bavarian as contrasted with Standard German).
- 2
A variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular area, community, or social group, differing from other varieties of the same language in relatively minor ways as regards grammar, phonology, and lexicon.
- 3
derogatoryLanguage that is perceived as substandard or wrong.
- 4
colloquialoffensiveA language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language spoken in a developing country or an isolated region.
- 5
A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
Home computers in the 1980s had many incompatible dialects of BASIC.
- 6
A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or population.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dialect in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense particular variety of a language:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dialect come from?
From Middle French dialecte, from Latin dialectos, dialectus, from Ancient Greek διάλεκτος (diálektos, “conversation, the language of a country or a place or a nation, the local idiom which derives from a dominant language”), from διαλέγομαι (dialégomai, “to participate in a dialogue”), from διά (diá, “inter, through”) + λέγω (légō, “to speak”); by surface analysis, dia- + -lect.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).