[-ISM.]
1. A vernacular word, idiom or mode of expression.
1846. Worcester (citing Q. Rev.).
1863. Neale, Ess. Liturgiol., 527. Wherever the Church … was not established till a late period, there such vernacularisms are scarcely, or not at all, perceptible.
1873. F. Hall, Mod. Eng., 307, note. The more of such vernacularisms [as ‘belongings’] we call up from the past, the better.
2. The use of the native language.
1850. Ecclesiologist, XI. 176. If Rome not merely allows, but authorises such vernacularism, who can forbid us to employ our own Ecclesiastical English?
