How to Use vernacular in a Sentence

vernacular

1 of 2 adjective
  • The poster is exactly that, a sound bite, and vernacular to the core.
    — New York Times, 15 Oct. 2020
  • Her approach lends it the quality of a folky, vernacular of a theme park.
    — Laura Bannister, Curbed, 5 Sep. 2025
  • 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
  • Emoji are part of our vernacular, with all of the attendant quirks and slang uses and confusion that come with it.
    — Lora Kelley, The Atlantic, 30 Dec. 2023
  • To him, vernacular references get in the way of making truly great buildings.
    — New York Times, 20 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
  • Jack’s on-the-page heightened vernacular and his lovable speech impediment are gone.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Nov. 2023
  • 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
  • But at the time, vernacular Bibles were associated with heresy.
    — Michael Bruening, The Conversation, 30 June 2026
  • 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
  • Once again, his use of vernacular and social media address appeared to be mocking the President’s own style.
    — Callum Sutherland, Time, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Mr Kinnear’s goal is to make the iambic pentameter seem as vernacular as artificial.
    — The Economist, 15 Mar. 2018
  • That was the beginning of it and the Coens have a deep knowledge of American vernacular music.
    — Jessica Nicholson, Billboard, 27 Feb. 2026
  • 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
  • Language, Chandler protests, lives and flourishes in bent rules, vernacular expressions—the unruly stuff of life.
    — Jake Lundberg, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2026
  • 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
  • That’s for sure when people speak patois, a vernacular version of English that’s based on a culture’s intonation.
    — Harriette Cole, Mercury News, 4 June 2026
  • 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
  • In Nepal, Meti is a vernacular social category for people assigned male at birth who live and present in feminine ways.
    — Vogue, 1 June 2026
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • In Tudor times, the printing of vernacular Bibles dethroned Latin as the language of Christian faith.
    — John Garth, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Sep. 2022
  • Then there’s the fact that the Biden himself is 80 years old — youthful vernacular is outright absurd in his grandfatherly cadence.
    — Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 22 Feb. 2023
  • 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
  • After a scolding, an African American child might refrain from speaking in vernacular English at school.
    — Sonia Rao, chicagotribune.com, 14 July 2018
  • 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

vernacular

2 of 2 noun
  • He spoke in the vernacular of an urban teenager.
  • But the vernacular of work life for many has changed just as much as their work has.
    — New York Times, 11 Dec. 2021
  • Such words are just part of her vernacular.
    — Charlotte Harpur, New York Times, 23 Feb. 2026
  • But all of this is done with a wondrous ear and a love for the vernacular.
    — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2017
  • The vernacular was good enough — for the artist and the art critic.
    — Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2021
  • There are many terms that are unique to the climate vernacular.
    — Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 1 Nov. 2021
  • Darren has a knack for teenagers, high school, and his vernacular.
    — Kerensa Cadenas, EW.com, 13 Dec. 2019
  • The whole piece is written in the pop vernacular for two reasons.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 22 Sep. 2021
  • In the current vernacular, this is a guy who has always had a side hustle.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 2 Feb. 2018
  • Those songs could only have been sung by one person in the vernacular of that person.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 14 Mar. 2026
  • The would-be word needs to be used in the common vernacular in multiple ways.
    — Christina Zdanowicz, CNN, 27 Feb. 2021
  • Five core values described in nine words that people now use as part of their vernacular.
    — Fortune Editors, Fortune, 23 Feb. 2022
  • Ed Life, in the in-house vernacular, has tried to explain this complex world.
    — Jane Karr, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2017
  • The English are proud of the range of their profane vernacular.
    — Georgi Kantchev, WSJ, 3 Aug. 2017
  • Europe is full of rivers and river boats of vernacular design.
    — Dan Neil, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2018
  • Who’s gonna fill their shoes, to borrow some country-music vernacular?
    — Mike Hembree, USA TODAY, 6 July 2018
  • Between the two world wars, there arose a modernist bias against the familiar and the vernacular.
    — John Check, WSJ, 28 Jan. 2022
  • Bill and Ted speak in what feels like a secret vernacular, often in unison.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2020
  • Slipping into a Black vernacular was fluid for my friends and me.
    — Vivian D. Nixon, Harper's BAZAAR, 28 June 2021
  • In the vernacular of post-modern basketball, few things elicit a did-you-see-that like a deep step-back jumper.
    — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 19 Feb. 2018
  • Named after a hockey player, the coffee chain comes with its own vernacular.
    — Eagranie Yuh, chicagotribune.com, 12 June 2017
  • The hard work of translating the artist’s vision into the vernacular was mostly done by this time.
    — New York Times, 14 Apr. 2021
  • Like most local builders, the man was schooled in the traditional vernacular.
    — Sarah Medford, WSJ, 7 Oct. 2020
  • This cause-and-effect sequence has long been recognized in the vernacular.
    — Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2021
  • That applies to turns of phrase in Jewish vernacular to which David himself was not privy.
    — Malina Saval, Variety, 3 Aug. 2022
  • 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
  • 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
  • One was this mercurial ‘70s lizard king and the other one was a square, to use the vernacular of the time.
    — Emily Zemler, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • 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
  • Up and Big Sur’s Treebones to a part of the travel vernacular.
    — Sarah Feldberg, SFChronicle.com, 10 June 2019

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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