# octolingual
## English
### Etymology

From octo- +‎ lingual.

### Pronunciation

* Rhymes: -ɪŋɡwəl

### Adjective

octolingual (not comparable)
* Written in eight languages.
** 1985, Dictionaries, number 7, page 34:In 1539 Estienne reversed his Dictionarium, a direct descendant of his own Latin Thesaurus, into the Dictionnaire that was the ancestor of Nicot’s French Thresor. He did this because when popular demand required a reprinting of the octolingual Calepin, Estienne found this work unacceptable and a willing revisor unavailable.
** 1997, In Quest of the 'Miracle Stag': The Poetry of Hungary, volume II, published 2003, →ISBN, page 537:Makkai is the author of Cantio Nocturna Peregrini Aviumque [Nightsong of the Wanderer and the Birds], an octolingual book of poetry honoring Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 250 anniversary in 1999.
** 1998, Quaerendo, volume 28, page 153:Also due for mention is Berlaymont’s octolingual dictionary, among them also Dutch, the Colloquia et dictionariolum octo linguarum; Latinae, Gallicae, Belgicae, Teutonicae, Hispanicae, Italicae, Anglicae et Portugallicae.
** 2000, William Jervis Jones, “Bibliography: anonymous works”, in German Lexicography in the European Context: A descriptive bibliography of printed dictionaries and word lists containing German language (1600–1700), Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, 19: Colloquia et dictionariolum octo linguarum (Venezia 1646), page 13:Contains an eight-language dictionary, fols. O8$^v$ - T3$^r$. The preface is dated 1585. NUC (NC 0554212) lists an octolingual edition of Venetiis 164-? (copy in Boulder UCL).
** 2004, Russian Society and Culture and the Long Eighteenth Century: Essays in Honour of Anthony G. Cross, →ISBN, page 155:Two years later, in 1639, an octolingual edition was issued by ‘Michael Sparke junior’ under the title New Dialogues or Colloquies, and, A little Dictionary of eight Languages. Latine, French, Low-Dutch [i.e. Flemish], High-Dutch [i.e. German], Spanish, Italian, English, Portugall.
** 2011, Dirk van Miert, Han van Ruler, editors, The Kaleidoscopic Scholarship of Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575): Northern Humanism at the Dawn of the Dutch Golden Age, Brill Publishers, →ISBN, pages 9–10:From 1565 onward Junius’ works were published with Christopher Plantin: his religious poem on the Passion (Anastaurosis), his edition of Nonius Marcellus and his Emblemata et Aenigmata (all in 1565), his frequently reprinted and adapted octolingual dictionary Nomenclator (1567), his editions of Eunapius and Martial (both 1568), and his edition of Hesychius (1572).
** 2015, A. E. B. Coldiron, Printers Without Borders: Translation and Textuality in the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 199–200:Beza, as he was called, wrote the Latin poem to Queen Elizabeth, and George Bishop and Ralph Newbery printed it and the seven translations in a most careful arrangement on the page. […] But the poetics of translation and printing of this page are also all about the landlocked “wars of letters,” the literary competition in which England had long been engaged, and the struggle to elevate the place of English letters in the world. That struggle finds a historico-political catalyst or stimulus here in the Armada moment and finds expression in the printing and translations on this remarkable octolingual page.
* Characterized by the use or presence of eight languages.
** 1951, The American Mercury, volume 72, page 154:The Doktor was in the highest dudgeon. He kept shouting "pigs, louts, goatherds" in several languages; then he exhausted his octolingual vocabulary on words like Communists, deviationists, Reactionaries, and Imperialist dogs.
** 1990, Canada. Parliament. House of Commons, House of Commons Debates, Official Report, volume 131:When I visited Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories some months ago I learned that one of the towns in the north—I am sorry, I forget which one—declared itself octolingual, to represent all of the languages spoken including, I might add, English and French, and six different native languages in that particular small town.
** 1991, Handbooks to the Modern World: Asia and the Pacific‎, page 1321:If the Japanese are the only producers of octolingual word processors the price will not be important; and if the relative deterioration of the British human capital stock continues, no rate for the pound against the yen will stimulate British exports from knowledge-intensive activities in either goods or services.
** 2000, Asian Theatre Journal, volume 17, page 273:The octolingual Play Hard addresses the extensive diversity within Taiwan itself by adding Hakka, the language of a significant minority group, as well as Sichuanese and Shanghainese, reflecting the wide range of areas in China from which people emigrated to Taiwan during the Nationalist retreat.
* Knowing eight languages.
** 1964, Technograph‎, volume 80, pages 32, 34:Also an octolingual Yugoslavian who was a lieutenant in the French Foreign Legion and was imprisoned in Buchenwald during the war, a Berlin business man, an economics professor and a girl who was the private secretary for Dinah Shore for three years.
** 2004, Lucy Moore, Maharanis: A Family Saga of Four Queens, published 2006, →ISBN:The faith he [Keshub Chunder Sen] preached was the Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1828 by the octolingual (Bengali, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, English, Greek, Latin and Hebrew) scholar Raja Rammohun Roy.
** 2008, Joel Derfner, Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead‎, page 96:H.N. was not fabulously wealthy, octolingual, or blond, but he was gorgeous and funny and skilled enough in the art of repartee to allow me to put these oversights down to a caprice of fate.