Glossary

The Englicious Glossary includes the new National Curriculum glossary terms, which are shown against a white background. However, there's much more to be found here:

  • we have added many entries that we feel are important, but cannot be found in the NC Glossary (e.g. connective), and
  • in many cases we have added information to the (often very brief) NC entries that need further explanation (e.g. clause and phrase).

Please note that in line with our practice throughout the site, we use capital letters for function terms such as Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Modifier, etc. Although this convention is not followed in the documentation published by the Department for Education we have also done so in the text that forms part of the National Curriculum Glossary.

Tip: Within our units and resources, Glossary items appear highlighted within the text. When you hover over them, or click on them in the Slideshow, a popup is generated.

uncountable noun

See countable noun.

undergoer

See patient.

ungrammatical

Not in conformity with the rules of a particular language. More specifically, this refers to words or strings of words which are not part of a language from the point of view of their syntax or morphology. For example, while Lily was eating a pretzel is a grammatical sentence in English, *Pretzel Lily a eating was is not, as indicated by the asterisk. Similarly unhappily is grammatical in English, but *lyhappyun is not.

unstressed

See stress.

unvoiced

A term used to describe speech sounds whose production does not involve vocal fold vibration.

utterance

A term used in pragmatics that refers to a sentence (or phrase or word) used in a particular context.
Englicious (C) Survey of English Usage, UCL, 2012-21 | Supported by the AHRC and EPSRC. | Privacy | Cookies