How to Use vernacular in a Sentence

vernacular

1 of 2 adjective
Definition of vernacularnext
Synonyms for vernacularnext
  • The poster is exactly that, a sound bite, and vernacular to the core.
    — New York Times, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Seaweed is the vernacular word for the largest kinds of algae, known as macroalgae.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 16 Mar. 2020
  • Why is the vernacular image still being dismissed as ephemera?
    — Leanne Shapton, Curbed, 9 Sep. 2021
  • The durable standing-seam metal roof was also a nod to vernacular architecture in the area.
    — Samantha Weiss Hills, Curbed, 26 Nov. 2018
  • To him, vernacular references get in the way of making truly great buildings.
    — New York Times, 20 Sep. 2021
  • While some elements of the house nod to vernacular architecture in the area, the interiors are contemporary and spare.
    — Samantha Weiss Hills, Curbed, 5 Aug. 2019
  • The images cover a broad range, from photos of black men which touch on my relationship to black masculinity, to scenes of black vernacular life.
    — Chioma Nnadi, Vogue, 15 Apr. 2019
  • Over time, most people began to replace the name prairie wolf with coyote or as some people pronounced it, in vernacular speech, kie-ote.
    — National Geographic, 7 Aug. 2016
  • Jack’s on-the-page heightened vernacular and his lovable speech impediment are gone.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Nov. 2023
  • Later, the vernacular ritual merged with the Feast of St. Lucy and became a festival of light.
    — Karin Altenberg, WSJ, 30 Dec. 2020
  • More regional and vernacular ideas were taking hold, along with postmodernism.
    — Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 17 May 2022
  • In Tudor times, the printing of vernacular Bibles dethroned Latin as the language of Christian faith.
    — John Garth, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Sep. 2022
  • The walls are mostly brick, laid in a woven pattern inspired by vernacular construction traditions.
    — Suleman Anaya Fabian Martinez, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2023
  • While Barker employs vernacular language to reduce the gap between past and present, Miller strives for a more archaic feel.
    — Miranda Seymour, The New York Review of Books, 17 Nov. 2021
  • The style is flatly vernacular, with nothing fancy or overtly dramatizing about it.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 26 July 2021
  • Almost all the designers who have done so have talked about the language of American sportswear, about something almost vernacular.
    — Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 30 Apr. 2022
  • Met Gala affecting an English accent) — all place him in the long vernacular tradition of the trickster.
    — Adam Bradley Adam Bradley Photographs By D’angelo Lovell Williams Styled By Ian Bradley Nick Haramis Photographs By Lise Sarfati Styled By Suzanne Koller Sasha Weiss Photographs By Justin French Susan Dominus Photographs By Luis Alberto Rodriguez Styled By Charlotte Collet, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2022
  • As one of the all-time great pop singers, Van Morrison uses vernacular to express himself and touch the deepest part of his listeners.
    — Armond White, National Review, 25 May 2022
  • The main house is a sprawling collection of shapes and volumes, some of which take their cues from vernacular rural buildings, capped by a combination of flat, arched, and peaked rooflines.
    — Mark David, Robb Report, 6 Oct. 2023
  • Mr Kinnear’s goal is to make the iambic pentameter seem as vernacular as artificial.
    — The Economist, 15 Mar. 2018
  • The influence of James was still apparent in her sumptuous phrase-making and labyrinthine syntax, but now it was tempered by more vernacular rhythms.
    — Giles Harvey, The New Yorker, 5 Apr. 2021
  • So many of the images are excellent examples of vernacular photography.
    — Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 25 May 2022
  • The book ends up an homage to a time when vernacular forms like folk, country and blues were the rock-solid foundations of music, rather than the beats, production tricks and techniques, and soundscapes of the last few decades.
    — David Browne, Rolling Stone, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Still the commitment to a vernacular aesthetic rather than to factual information.
    — Luke Mogelson, The New Yorker, 19 Jan. 2020
  • Brutalism is, as the critic Michael J. Lewis has pointed out, the vernacular expression of the welfare state.
    — Nikil Saval, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2016
  • Very few political scientists, very few law school professors, very few historians have the training or the vernacular to talk about these subjects.
    — Sophia Nguyen, Washington Post, 16 June 2023
  • But Barney is too exacting to be casual, and many of her attempts at vernacular naturalism feel stiff or self-conscious.
    — Vince Aletti, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2023
  • And there was also a pertinent aesthetic bias: The reigning modernist idiom was streamlined and clean, inhospitable to vernacular grit.
    — Joseph Horowitz, WSJ, 7 Feb. 2020
  • The success of this wave of comedy encouraged other regional language networks to carry vernacular segments.
    — Suraj Yengde, Quartz India, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Luther’s vernacular writings, above all his translation of the Bible, have a fair claim to have forged a single German language out of a multitude of local dialects.
    — Eamon Duffy, The New York Review of Books, 18 Apr. 2019
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vernacular

2 of 2 noun
  • He spoke in the vernacular of an urban teenager.
  • The vernacular was good enough — for the artist and the art critic.
    — Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2021
  • But all of this is done with a wondrous ear and a love for the vernacular.
    — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2017
  • But the vernacular of work life for many has changed just as much as their work has.
    — New York Times, 11 Dec. 2021
  • There are many terms that are unique to the climate vernacular.
    — Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 1 Nov. 2021
  • The whole piece is written in the pop vernacular for two reasons.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 22 Sep. 2021
  • The English are proud of the range of their profane vernacular.
    — Georgi Kantchev, WSJ, 3 Aug. 2017
  • The would-be word needs to be used in the common vernacular in multiple ways.
    — Christina Zdanowicz, CNN, 27 Feb. 2021
  • It's become sort of part of the vernacular of humor as in: easy joke.
    — Chris Barton, latimes.com, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Between the two world wars, there arose a modernist bias against the familiar and the vernacular.
    — John Check, WSJ, 28 Jan. 2022
  • Yang dressed in the informal vernacular of the disrupter.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 28 June 2019
  • Darren has a knack for teenagers, high school, and his vernacular.
    — Kerensa Cadenas, EW.com, 13 Dec. 2019
  • A wood ape is the local vernacular for a Sasquatch or a Bigfoot.
    — Joey Nolfi, PEOPLE.com, 29 June 2017
  • The important thing about this is the jury and the board just decided that the album is a word of vernacular avant-garde.
    — Joe Lynch, Billboard, 16 Apr. 2018
  • The hard work of translating the artist’s vision into the vernacular was mostly done by this time.
    — New York Times, 14 Apr. 2021
  • Five core values described in nine words that people now use as part of their vernacular.
    — Fortune Editors, Fortune, 23 Feb. 2022
  • Europe is full of rivers and river boats of vernacular design.
    — Dan Neil, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2018
  • Hurston’s use of vernacular had detractors even in her day.
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 17 Jan. 2020
  • Ed Life, in the in-house vernacular, has tried to explain this complex world.
    — Jane Karr, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2017
  • Like most local builders, the man was schooled in the traditional vernacular.
    — Sarah Medford, WSJ, 7 Oct. 2020
  • All the words that have stoked the right’s vernacular sense of permanent emergency at the border matter.
    — Ed Burmila, The New Republic, 13 June 2019
  • And the vernacular of drag culture has been absorbed so quickly that few even know where the terms originated.
    — Lexi Pandell, WIRED, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Slipping into a Black vernacular was fluid for my friends and me.
    — Vivian D. Nixon, Harper's BAZAAR, 28 June 2021
  • But the decision was also — to use a word that has fallen out of favor in the business vernacular — wrong.
    — Elizabeth C. Tippett, The Denver Post, 23 Feb. 2017
  • Bill and Ted speak in what feels like a secret vernacular, often in unison.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2020
  • As your dog sniffs about, take your time to read the helpful vernacular and scientific names on the botanical signs next to each plant.
    — John Oseid, Forbes, 6 July 2021
  • Named after a hockey player, the coffee chain comes with its own vernacular.
    — Eagranie Yuh, chicagotribune.com, 12 June 2017
  • That applies to turns of phrase in Jewish vernacular to which David himself was not privy.
    — Malina Saval, Variety, 3 Aug. 2022
  • Waiters wasn't (and still might not be) at a time in his career where deferring was in his vernacular.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun-Sentinel.com, 4 June 2017
  • This cause-and-effect sequence has long been recognized in the vernacular.
    — Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vernacular.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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