DictionaryAI

colloquial

Saykuh-LOH-kwee-uhlUS/kəˈloʊ.kwi.əl/UK/kəˈləʊ.kwɪəl/

3 meanings of colloquial

Practice

  1. 1
    adjective
    Typical of the familiar language of everyday conversation rather than of formal speech or writing.

    The novel's dialogue is deliberately colloquial, full of slang and half-finished sentences.

    The new translation is more colloquial than the old one, so the characters finally sound like real teenagers.

    Similarinformal, conversational, casual, everyday, vernacular

    Oppositeformal, literary

    Note

    To a linguist the word names a register, not a fault: the language of relaxed conversation, which may be out of place in a formal letter without being wrong.

Less common meanings

  1. 2
    adjectivedated
    Relating to conversation, or having the easy, chatty quality of conversation.
  2. 3
    nounrare
    A word or phrase that belongs to familiar everyday conversation rather than to formal language.

Use it in a sentence

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Origin

Latin colloquium ("conference, conversation"), from con- ("together") and loquor ("to speak"), gave the earlier English word colloquy ("a conversation"). Adding -al to it produced colloquial, recorded from 1751.