historical linguistics

noun

the study of changes in a language or group of languages over a period of time.

Origin:
1920–25

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

historical linguistics

—n
	(functioning as singular) Compare descriptive linguistics Also called: diachronic linguistics the study of language as it changes in the course of time, with a view either to discovering general principles of linguistic change or to establishing the correct genealogical classification of particular languages

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What Are Historical Ling...

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Historical linguistics is always a great word to know.

So is callithumpian. Does it mean:

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

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Matching Quote

"The warning given to Louis XVI: "No, sire, this is not a rebellion, it is a revolution," accents the essential difference. It means precisely that "it is the absolute certainty of a new form of government." Rebellion is, by nature, limited in scope. It is no more than an incoherent pronouncement. Revolution, on the contrary, originates in the realm of ideas. Specifically, it is the injection of ideas into historical experience, while rebellion is only the movement that leads from individual experience into the realm of ideas. While even the collective history of a movement of rebellion is always that of a fruitless struggle with facts, of an obscure protest which involves neither methods nor reasons, a revolution is an attempt to shape action to ideas, to fit the world into a theoretic frame. That is why rebellion kills men while revolution destroys both men and principles."

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