noun.
The love or the study of learning and literature; the investigation of a language and its literature, or of languages and literatures, for the light they cast upon men's character, activity, and history.
the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
noun.
Criticism; grammatical learning.
noun.
The study of language, especially in a philosophical manner and as a science; the investigation of the laws of human speech, the relation of different tongues to one another, and historical development of languages; linguistic science.