lingua franca

• POS: Noun Phrase
• HYPHEN: lin=gua fran=ca

CIDE DICTIONARY

lingua franca, n. [It., prop., language of the Franks.].

•  The commercial language of the Levant, -- a mixture of the languages of the people of the region and of foreign traders.  [1913 Webster]
•  Any hybrid or other language used over a wide area as a common or commercial tongue among peoples of different speech.  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

lingua franca, n. (pl. lingua francas)
1 a language adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.
2 a system for mutual understanding.
3 hist. a mixture of Italian with French, Greek, Arabic, and Spanish, used in the Levant.

Etymology

It., = Frankish tongue

ROGET THESAURUS

lingua franca

Neologism

N neology, neologism, newfangled expression, nonce expression, back-formation, caconym, barbarism, archaism, black letter, monkish Latin, corruption, missaying, malapropism, antiphrasis, pun, paranomasia, play upon words, word play, double- entendre, palindrome, paragram, anagram, clinch, abuse of language, abuse of terms, dialect, brogue, idiom, accent, patois, provincialism, regionalism, localism, broken English, lingua franca, Anglicism, Briticism, Gallicism, Scotticism, Hibernicism, Americanism, Gypsy lingo, Romany, pidgin, pidgin English, pigeon English, Volapuk, Chinook, Esperanto, Hindustani, kitchen Kaffir, dog Latin, macaronics, gibberish, confusion of tongues, Babel, babu English, chi-chi, figure of speech, byword, colloquialism, informal speech, informal language, substandard language, vernacular, vulgar language, obscene language, obscenity, vulgarity, jargon, technical terms, technicality, lingo, slang, cant, argot, St. Gile's Greek, thieves' Latin, peddler's French, flash tongue, Billingsgate, Wall Street slang, pseudology, pseudonym, Mr, So-and-so, wha d'ye call 'em, whatchacallim, what's his name, thingummy, thingumbob, je ne sais quoi, neologist, coiner of words, neologic, neological, archaic, obsolete, colloquial, Anglice.