european languages

Preserved but no longer current.

Meaning · English

The plan was immediately adopted and it soon became the most ambitious propaganda campaign of World War II, The Morse Code V (• • • — ) was featured in every B.B.C. broadcast to Europe; this was followed by the use of the opening bar of Beethoven's 5th Symphony which has the same rhythm. "Colonel Britton" (Douglas E. Ritchie, director of the B.B.C.

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Examples

Frustrated with the European languages, which he considered "too boring", Christopher Columbus invented "Columbian", a language so complicated that only he could speak it.Cri-xtốp-phơ Cô-lôm-bô vì cho rằng những ngôn ngữ châu Âu quá nhàm chán, nên ông đã phát minh ra tiếng Cô-lôm - một loại ngôn ngữ mà chỉ mình ông có thể dùng.

Tatoeba sentence #545590 (CC BY 2.0 FR, tatoeba.org, retrieved 2026-07-31)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Common questions

What does “european languages” mean?

The plan was immediately adopted and it soon became the most ambitious propaganda campaign of World War II, The Morse Code V (• • • — ) was featured in every B.B.C. broadcast to Europe; this was followed by the use of the opening bar of Beethoven's 5th Symphony which has the same rhythm. "Colonel Britton" (Douglas E. Ritchie, director of the B.B.C.

Is “european languages” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.