| acrolect |
| Definition: The formal register of a spoken language. In other words, the high style of a language; the one that is normally used, for example, during important ritual occasions. |
| Example: The writing style found in the King James Bible: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. |
| Etymology: The term was coined by linguist Derek Bickerton in the early 1970s. I would guess that he probably coined it by combining the Greek akros, highest or upper, with the word dialect. |
| OED: The first full citation of the term is from 1977: "Speakers in a post-creole community are triply pressured: to avoid the basilect, to acquire the acrolect, and to vary the mesolect." (Language LIII. 330) |