diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 6f4623b2c..ab2aead84 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -189,11 +189,11 @@ else
 endif
 
 # optionally, use Compact Language Detector2 if we can find it.
-cld2_dep = meson.get_compiler('cpp').find_library('cld2', required: false)
-if cld2_dep.found()
+cld2_dep = meson.get_compiler('cpp').find_library('cld2', required: get_option('cld2'))
+if not get_option('cld2').disabled() and cld2_dep.found()
   config_h_data.set('HAVE_CLD2', 1)
 else
-  message('CLD2 not found; no support for language detection')
+  message('CLD2 not found or disabled; no support for language detection')
 endif
 
 # note: these are for the unit-tests
diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
index eabdc00bb..93bc7dbca 100644
--- a/meson_options.txt
+++ b/meson_options.txt
@@ -24,6 +24,11 @@ option('guile',
        value: 'auto',
        description: 'build the guile scripting support (requires guile-3.x)')
 
+option('cld2',
+       type : 'feature',
+       value: 'auto',
+       description: 'Compact Language Detector2')
+
 # by default, this uses guile_dep.get_variable(pkgconfig: 'extensiondir')
 option('guile-extension-dir',
        type: 'string',