Definition of "English"

English

/ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

adjective
comparative more English, superlative most English
1. Of or pertaining to England.
  Quotations
  During the war of 1914–18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired.
  1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I
2. English-language; of or pertaining to the language, descended from Anglo-Saxon, which developed in England.
  Quotations
  Honest, honest, English is just a language of confusions.
  2020, Abi Daré, The Girl With The Louding Voice, Sceptre, page 187
3. Of or pertaining to the people of England (to Englishmen and Englishwomen).
  Quotations
  Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
4. Of or pertaining to the avoirdupois system of measure.
5. (Amish) Non-Amish, so named for speaking English rather than a variety of German.
6. (film, television) Denoting a vertical orientation of the barn doors.
noun
countable and uncountable, plural English or Englishes
1. (in the plural) The people of England, Englishmen and Englishwomen.
  Quotations
  Cricket—a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity.
  1979, Stormont Mancroft, Bees in Some Bonnets, p. 175
2. (Amish, in the plural) The non-Amish, people outside the Amish faith and community.
3. (uncountable) Facility with the English language, ability to employ English correctly and idiomatically.
4. (uncountable) A particular instance of the English language, including
  1. The English term or expression for some thing or idea.
  2. The English text or phrasing of some spoken or written communication.
  3. A clear and readily understandable expression of some idea in English.
    Quotations
    Data: I have completed my analysis of the anomaly. It appears to be a multi-phasic temporal convergence in the space-time continuum.Dr. Crusher: In English, Data.
    1994, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, “All Good Things...”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 7, episodes 25-26, Brent Spiner and Gates McFadden (actors)
  4. Synonym of language arts, the class dedicated to improving primary and secondary school students' mastery of English and the material taught in such classes.
    Quotations
    This reflects that in English, students learn a range of text types, such as procedures, editorials, poetry, and not just academic essays.
    2018, Clarence Green, James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, page 109
5. (printing, dated) A size of type between pica (12 point) and great primer (18 point), standardized as 14-point.
6. (uncountable, Canada, US) Alternative form of english.
proper noun
countable and uncountable, plural Englishes
1. The language originating in England but now spoken in all parts of the British Isles, the Commonwealth of Nations, North America, and other parts of the world.
2. A variety, dialect, or idiolect of spoken and or written English.
  Quotations
  I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, which for lack of a better term might be described as “simple”; the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be described as “broken”; my translation of her Chinese, which could certainly be described as “watered down”; and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese if she could speak in perfect English, her internal language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure.
  2003, Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”, in The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, page 278
3. English language, literature, composition as a subject of study
4. An English surname originally denoting a non-Celtic or non-Danish person in Britain.
5. A male or female given name
6. A number of places in the United States:
  1. A town, the county seat of Crawford County, Indiana; named for Indiana statesman William Hayden English.
  2. An unincorporated community in Carroll County, Kentucky.
  3. An unincorporated community in Brazoria County, Texas.
  4. An unincorporated community in Red River County, Texas.
  5. An unincorporated community in McDowell County, West Virginia.
verb
third-person singular simple present Englishes, present participle Englishing, simple past and past participle Englished
1. (transitive; archaic or rare) To translate, adapt or render into English.
  Quotations
  […] severe prohibuit viris suis tum misceri feminas in consuetis suis menstruis, etc. I spare to English this which I have said.
  1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps
  Mamma is an adaptation of a French farce by Mr. Sydney Grundy, made in the time when his chief claim to recognition as a playwright lay in his ingenious aptitude for Englishing the un-Englishable.
  1901, The Speaker, the Liberal Review - Volume 3, page 654
  Here, the poems are Englished by twelve different translators
  2011, Colin Cheney, 'Where Should I Start with Tomas Tranströmer?'