Dwight Le Merton Bolinger (August 18, 1907 – February 23, 1992) was an American linguist and Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.
He was known for the support and encouragement he gave younger scholars and for his hands-on approach to the analysis of human language.
His work touched on a wide range of subjects, including semantics, intonation, phonesthesia, and the politics of language.
He was elected president of the Linguistic Society of America in 1972 and awarded the Orwell Award by the National Council of Teachers of English in 1981 for Language—The Loaded Weapon, a book that inspired other linguists to restore a role for the application of common sense in the study of language.
Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has described Bolinger as "one of the most distinguished semanticists" of the mid-twentieth century, pointing to his "uncanny ear for the nuances of words."