Word of the Day : April 21, 2020
colloquy
noun – KAH-luh-kwee
Definition
- conversation, dialogue
- a high-level serious discussion : conference
Did You Know?
Colloquy may make you think of colloquial, and there is indeed a connection between the two words. As a matter of fact, colloquy is the parent word from which colloquial was coined in the mid-18th century. Colloquy itself, though now the less common of the two words, has been a part of the English language since the 15th century. It is a descendant of Latin loquī, meaning “to speak.” Other descendants of loquī in English include eloquent, loquacious, ventriloquism, and soliloquy, as well as elocution and interlocutor.
Examples
The company’s employees worried and speculated as the executive team remained closeted in an intense colloquy for the entire morning.
“He has a pitch-perfect ear for the cutesy euphemisms parents devise for their little kids (‘Don’t be a pane of glass’) and for their snarky colloquieswith precocious teenagers (‘That’s not the tone you take with your grandmother.’ ‘I’m not taking a tone, I’m making an argument.’ ‘Your argument has a tone’).” — Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2019.
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