word-hoard

See also: wordhoard

English

Alternative forms

• wordhoard

Etymology

A modern calque of Old English wordhord (“treasury of words”), equivalent to word +‎ hoard. Compare Dutch woordenschat, German Wortschatz.

Noun

word-hoard (plural word-hoards)

1. A vocabulary; the totality of words of a language or a person.
   • 1930, Janet Rankin Aiken, “English the world over”, in The Bookman, London, page 67:

     Wordiness is not usually considered a virtue any more than impurity is; but words are the wealth of English, and the riches of its word-hoard are only paralleled by the riches of the Anglo-American nations.

   • 1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 44:

     Primary additions to the wordhoard tend to come from commercial sources[.]

Synonyms

• vocabulary, lexicon, word-stock

Translations

vocabulary — see vocabulary