Definition of: linguistics

(ling·gwis′tiks) noun
The science of language, its origin, structure, modifications, etc., including among its studies the fields of phonetics, phonemics, morphology, syntax, and semantics: usually divided into historical (or diachronic) linguistics, the study of the evolution of languages and linguistic phenomena; descriptive (or synchronic) linguistics, the study of a language or languages at a given stage of development; comparative linguistics, the comparison and contrast of related languages; geographical linguistics (or linguistic geography), the classification of the distribution of languages and dialects on a regional basis.