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Homely vs Vernacular - What's the difference?

homely | vernacular | Related terms |

Homely is a related term of vernacular.


As adjectives the difference between homely and vernacular

is that homely is (dated) lacking in beauty or elegance, plain in appearance, physically unattractive while vernacular is of or pertaining to everyday language.

As a noun vernacular is

the language of a people or a national language.

homely

English

Alternative forms

* (l) (Scotland)

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • (dated) Lacking in beauty or elegance, plain in appearance, physically unattractive.
  • There is none so homely but loves a looking-glass.
  • * 1958 , , Lolita , Chapter 15
  • You see, she'' sees herself as a starlet; ''I see her as a sturdy, healthy but decidedly homely kid.
  • (archaic) Characteristic of or belonging to home; domestic.
  • On intimate or friendly terms with (someone); familiar; at home (with a person); intimate.
  • * 1563 , , Chapter on William Thorpe
  • With all these men I was right homely , and communed with them long and oft.
  • Domestic; tame.
  • Personal; private.
  • Friendly; kind; gracious; cordial.
  • (archaic) Simple; plain; familiar; unelaborate; unadorned.
  • * 1731 , , Strephon and Chloe, Lines 211-212
  • Now Strephon daily entertains / His Chloe in the homeliest strains.
  • * 2001 , Sydney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography , Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0-521-78512-X), page 167,
  • There is no simple way to define precisely a complex arrangement of parts, however homely the object may appear to be.

    Antonyms

    * comely

    vernacular

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The language of a people or a national language.
  • ''A vernacular of the United States is English.
  • Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to literary, liturgical, or scientific language.
  • Street vernacular can be quite different from what is heard elsewhere.
  • Language unique to a particular group of people; jargon, argot.
  • For those of a certain age, hiphop vernacular might just as well be a foreign language.
  • (Roman Catholicism) The indigenous language of a people, into which the words of the Mass are translated.
  • Vatican II allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular .

    Synonyms

    * (language unique to a group) argot, jargon, slang

    Antonyms

    * (national language) lingua franca

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of or pertaining to everyday language.
  • Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or nature; native; indigenous.
  • a vernacular disease
  • (architecture) of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported
  • (art) is connected to a collective memory; not imported
  • Synonyms

    * (of everyday language) common, everyday, indigenous, ordinary, vulgar * (architecture) folk