mother tongue

Questions about mother tongue

What is another word for mother tongue?

It depends which mother tongue you mean. In the sense “one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next”, the synonyms are maternal language, first language. Across all 1 sense there are 2 distinct synonyms, and they are not interchangeable with each other — this page lists them under the sense each one belongs to.

What is the opposite of mother tongue?

WordNet records no antonym for mother tongue. Antonymy in WordNet is a relation between specific word forms rather than between concepts, so it is recorded only where lexicographers judged the pairing direct. An absence here means none was recorded, not that none can be imagined.

Where do the synonyms for mother tongue come from?

From Princeton University's WordNet, a lexical database maintained by lexicographers since 1985. A synonym here means a word form that shares a synset with this word — a set of forms interchangeable in one recorded context. Nothing on this page is generated by a language model.

Other views of mother tongue

• Full entry for mother tongueAll 1 sense, with examples, usage labels, syllables and pronunciation.
• Rhymes for mother tongueWhether this word can be rhymed at all — it is not in the pronouncing dictionary.
• Thesaurus homeHow WordNet synsets work, and the collections built for synonym work.