Grammar

6 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Grammar \Gram"mar\, v. i.
     To discourse according to the rules of grammar; to use
     grammar. [Obs.] --Beau. & Fl.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  Grammar \Gram"mar\, n. [OE. gramere, OF. gramaire, F. grammaire
     Prob. fr. L. gramatica Gr ?, fem. of ? skilled in grammar,
     fr. ? letter. See {Gramme}, {Graphic}, and cf. {Grammatical},
     {Gramarye}.]
     1. The science which treats of the principles of language;
        the study of forms of speech, and their relations to one
        another; the art concerned with the right use and
        application of the rules of a language, in speaking or
        writing.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: The whole fabric of grammar rests upon the classifying
           of words according to their function in the sentence.
           --Bain.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The art of speaking or writing with correctness or
        according to established usage; speech considered with
        regard to the rules of a grammar.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The original bad grammar and bad spelling.
                                                    --Macaulay.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A treatise on the principles of language; a book
        containing the principles and rules for correctness in
        speaking or writing.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. treatise on the elements or principles of any science; as,
        a grammar of geography.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Comparative grammar}, the science which determines the
        relations of kindred languages by examining and comparing
        their grammatical forms.
  
     {Grammar school}.
        (a) A school, usually endowed, in which Latin and Greek
            grammar are taught, as also other studies preparatory
            to colleges or universities; as, the famous Rugby
            Grammar School. This use of the word is more common in
            England than in the United States.
            [1913 Webster]
  
                  When any town shall increase to the number of a
                  hundred
                  families or householders, they shall set up a
                  grammar school, the master thereof being able to
                  instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for
                  the University.                   --Mass.
                                                    Records
                                                    (1647).
        (b) In the American system of graded common schools, at
            one time the term referred to an intermediate school
            between the primary school and the high school, in
            which the principles of English grammar were taught;
            now, it is synonymous with {primary school} or
            {elementary school}, being the first school at which
            children are taught subjects required by the state
            educational laws. In different communities, the
            grammar school (primary school) may have grades 1 to
            4, 1 to 6, or 1 to 8, usually together with a
            kindergarten. Schools between the primary school and
            high school are now commonly termed {middle school} or
            {intermediate school}.
            [1913 Webster +PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  grammar
       n : studies of the formation of basic linguistic units

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  83 Moby Thesaurus words for "grammar":
     abecedarium, abecedary, alphabet, alphabet book, basics,
     battledore, bowwow theory, casebook, choice of words,
     comparative linguistics, composition, derivation,
     descriptive linguistics, dialect, dialectology, diction,
     dingdong theory, elements, etymology, exercise book, expression,
     first principles, first steps, formulation, fundamentals,
     glossematics, glossology, glottochronology, glottology, gradus,
     graphemics, historical linguistics, hornbook, idiom, induction,
     language, language study, lexicology, lexicostatistics,
     linguistic geography, linguistic science, linguistics, locution,
     manual, manual of instruction, mathematical linguistics,
     morphology, morphophonemics, outlines, paleography, parlance,
     philology, phonetics, phonology, phrase, phraseology, phrasing,
     primer, principia, principles, psycholinguistics, reader, rhetoric,
     rudiments, schoolbook, semantics, sociolinguistics, speech,
     speller, spelling book, structuralism, syntactics, t, talk, text,
     transformational linguistics, usage, use of words, usus loquendi,
     verbiage, wordage, wording, workbook
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  grammar
       
          A formal definition of the syntactic structure of a language
          (see {syntax}), normally given in terms of {production rule}s
          which specify the order of constituents and their
          sub-constituents in a {sentence} (a well-formed string in the
          language).  Each rule has a left-hand side symbol naming a
          syntactic category (e.g. "noun-phrase" for a {natural
          language} grammar) and a right-hand side which is a sequence
          of zero or more symbols.  Each symbol may be either a
          {terminal symbol} or a non-terminal symbol.  A terminal symbol
          corresponds to one "{lexeme}" - a part of the sentence with
          no internal syntactic structure (e.g. an identifier or an
          operator in a computer language).  A non-terminal symbol is
          the left-hand side of some rule.
       
          One rule is normally designated as the top-level rule which
          gives the structure for a whole sentence.
       
          A grammar can be used either to parse a sentence (see
          {parser}) or to generate one.  Parsing assigns a terminal
          syntactic category to each input token and a non-terminal
          category to each appropriate group of tokens, up to the level
          of the whole sentence.  Parsing is usually preceded by
          {lexical analysis}.  Generation starts from the top-level rule
          and chooses one alternative production wherever there is a
          choice.
       
          See also {BNF}, {yacc}, {attribute grammar}, {grammar
          analysis}.
       
       

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  GRAMMAR, n.  A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet
  for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to
  distinction.