What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Obsolete vs Dialect - What's the difference?

obsolete | dialect |

As an adjective obsolete

is obsolete, deprecated (computing).

As a noun dialect is

(linguistics) a variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.

obsolete

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • No longer in use; gone into disuse; disused or neglected (often by preference for something newer, which replaces the subject).
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The attack of the MOOCs , passage=Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete .}}
  • (biology) Imperfectly developed; not very distinct.
  • Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "obsolete" is often applied: word, phrase, equipment, computer, technology, weapon, machine, law, statute, currency, building, idea, skill, concept, custom, theory, tradition, institution.

    Synonyms

    * (no longer in use) ancient, antiquated, antique, archaic, disused, neglected, old, old-fashioned, out of date * abortive, obscure, rudimental

    Derived terms

    * obsoleteness

    Verb

    (obsolet)
  • (US) Oxford Dictionary To cause to become obsolete.
  • This software component has been obsoleted .
    We are in the process of obsoleting this product.

    Usage notes

    * (term) is often used in computing and other technical fields to indicate an effort to remove or replace something. * Compare

    References

    dialect

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (linguistics) A variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.
  • * A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
  • *
  • And in addition, many dialects of English make no morphological distinction between Adjectives and Adverbs, and thus use Adjectives in contexts where the standard language requires -ly'' Adverbs: compare
    (81) (a)      Tex talks ''really quickly'' [Adverb + Adverb]
            (b)   %Tex talks ''real quick
    [Adjective + Adjective]
  • A dialect of a language perceived as substandard and wrong.
  • * 1967 , Roger W. Shuy, Discovering American dialects , National Council of Teachers of English, page 1:
  • Many even deny it and say something like this: "No, we don't speak a dialect around here. [...]
  • * 1975 , Linguistic perspectives on black English , H. Carl, page 219:
  • Well, those children don't speak dialect , not in this school. Maybe in the public schools, but not here.
  • * 1994 , H. Nigel Thomas, Spirits in the dark , Heinemann, page 11:
  • [...] on the second day, Miss Anderson gave the school a lecture on why it was wrong to speak dialect'. She had ended by saying "Respectable people don't speak ' dialect ."
  • A language.
  • A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
  • Home computers in the 1980s had many incompatible dialects of BASIC.

    Usage notes

    * The difference between a language and a dialect is not always clear, but it is generally considered that people who speak different dialects can understand each other, while people who speak different languages cannot. Compare species in the biological sense.

    Derived terms

    * dialectal * dialectic

    See also

    * dialogue * ethnolect * idiolect * sociolect

    Anagrams

    * ----