Meanings
plural chronolects
- human sciencesA specific variety of a language at a given time in its history of development.
Koine and Byzantine are chronolects of Greek.
1 more example
Taking lect in the sense of ‘variety’ (and not ‘social variety’), I have coined spatiolect ‘spatial variety’, chronolect ‘chronological variety’, communolect ‘variety of a community (however defined)’, ecolect ‘variety of an economic class’, ethnolect ‘variety of an ethnic group’, religiolect ‘variety of a religious group’, sexlect ‘variety of one of the sexes or of people with a certain sexual orientation’, urbolect ‘urban variety’, and rurolect ‘rural variety’.
1981, Leuvense Bijdragen, volume LXX, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, page 52
Origin
From chrono- (“time”) + -lect (“[language] variety”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
chronolect. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chronolect
“chronolect.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chronolect. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chronolect,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chronolect.
Source: chronolect on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.