Language refers to a body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication. It commonly describes the ability to communicate using words, the expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does, and a body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to a computer language; a machine language, manner of expression, and the particular words used in a speech or a passage of text, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Language as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include profanity, a languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ, and to communicate by language; to express in language, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term.
