Definition of: dialect

(dī′ə·lekt) noun
1. A variety of speech distinguished from the standard or literary language by variations of idiom, vocabulary, phonology, and morphology peculiar to a particular geographical location: the Southern dialect of American English.
2. A manner of speech adopted by the members of a class, trade, or profession; jargon; cant: the dialect of the cultured.
3. An imperfect use of the standard language by those to whom another language is native.
4. A language developed from a root language, retaining recognizable elements of the parent but having distinctive vocabulary, pronunciation, forms, and idiom; a linguistic branch: The Romance languages are dialects of Latin. See synonyms under LANGUAGE. [<MF dialecte <L dialectus <Gk. dialektos discourse, way of speaking <dialegesthai <dia- across + legesthai speak]