Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Colloquial |
ColloquialAdjective1. Characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation; "wrote her letters in a colloquial style"; "the broken syntax and casual enunciation of conversational English". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "colloquial" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
Note: Colloquial \Col*lo"qui*al\, adjective. [See Colloqui.]. (references) |
Synonym: ColloquialSynonym: conversational (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Conversation | Adjective: conversing; Verb: interlocutory; conversational, conversable; discursive, discoursive; chatty; (sociable); colloquial. |
Imagination | General meaning, broad meaning, substantial meaning, colloquial meaning, literal meaning, plain meaning, simple meaning, natural meaning, unstrained meaning, true; (exact) meaning, honest; meaning, prima facie; (manifest) meaning; letter of the law. |
Metaphor | Adjective: metaphorical, figurative, catachrestical, typical, parabolic, allegorical, allusive, anagogical; ironical; colloquial; tropical. |
Neologism | Adjective: neologic, neological; archaic; obsolete; (old); colloquial; Anglice. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Colloquial |
| English words defined with "colloquial": at any rate, at least ♦ brolly, burg, buttoned-up ♦ Can't, choc, choc-ice, colloquialism, Colloquialize, colloquially, conk, conversational, conversationally ♦ Demotic ♦ 'Em ♦ fixed up, foot, formal ♦ gamp ♦ hoof, hoof it, hypercritical ♦ informally, invite, I've ♦ language, leastways, leastwise, leg it, lyric ♦ Mandarin language, mop up, Mountie ♦ nary ♦ overcritical ♦ pip ♦ rack up ♦ Sambo, sport, summercater ♦ T'other ♦ 'Twixt ♦ Unsight unseen ♦ Wa'n't, whip, Won't, words, worst. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "colloquial": Ain't, Anyhow ♦ cheapernet, Contractions ♦ down ♦ Good deal, Great deal ♦ hard-rock geology ♦ INFALAPSARIAN, Isn't ♦ kaoleen ♦ saw, Settle up, soft-rock geology ♦ Tasty ♦ Ugly. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "colloquial": Slumpy. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Travel | Egypt | Colloquial Cairene Arabic is expressive and rich in words of Coptic, European and Turkish origins. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth. A penny saved is a penny to squander. A man is known by the company that he organizes. A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that. A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. Better late than before anybody has invited you. Example is better than following it. Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else. Think twice before you speak to a friend in need. What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it. Least said is soonest disavowed. He laughs best who laughs least. Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it. Of two evils choose to be the least. Strike while your employer has a big contract. Where there's a will there's a won't. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Colloquial" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.08% of the time. "Colloquial" is used about 109 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.08% | 108 | 31,306 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.92% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 109 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "colloquial": colloquial english ♦ colloquial expression ♦ colloquial language ♦ colloquial speech. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "colloquial": non-colloquial. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
colloquial | 24 |
colloquial expression | 5 |
colloquial dictionary | 4 |
colloquial english | 4 |
colloquial spanish | 4 |
beginner colloquial complete course hindi | 3 |
colloquial phrase | 3 |
colloquial arabic | 3 |
colloquial language | 2 |
colloquial words | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "colloquial"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i gjuhës së folur, bisedor (conversational, interlocutory). (various references) | |
Arabic | لغة عامة, غير فصيح (barbarous, base), عامية (slang, vernacular, vulgarity), عامي (base, informal, plebeian, slang, slangy, vernacular, vulgar, yearly). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | разговорен (conversational, everyday). (various references) | |
Chinese | 口语 (Colloquially). (various references) | |
Czech | hovorový (informal, spoken). (various references) | |
Farsi | محاوره ای , مصطلح (Ycleped, Yclept), گفتگوءی , اصطلاحی (Idiomatic). (various references) | |
Finnish | arkinen sanonta (colloquial phrase), arkikieli (colloquial language). (various references) | |
French | parlé, familier (commonplace). (various references) | |
German | umgangssprachlich (colloquially). (various references) | |
Greek | καθομιλούμενοσ (conversational), καθομιλουμένη (vernacular), ομιλουμένη. (various references) | |
Hebrew | לשון מ"וברת (vernacular), "בורי (oral, vernacular). (various references) | |
Hungarian | könnyed (airy, ethereal, facile, fluent, free and easy, graceful, jaunty, light, lightsome, off hand, off-handed, tripping). (various references) | |
Indonesian | percakapan (conversation, dialogue), bahasa sehari-hari. (various references) | |
Italian | colloquiale. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 話言葉 (colloquial expression, spoken language), 雅俗 (classical and colloquial, refined and vulgar), 白話 (colloquial Chinese), 候 (classical verbal ending equivalent to colloquial -masu), 候 (classical verbal ending equivalent to colloquial -masu, season, weather), 口語訳 (colloquial translation), 口語文 (colloquial language or sentence), 口語" (colloquial style), 口語 (colloquial language), 俗語 (colloquial language, colloquialism), 俗語 (colloquial language, colloquialism), 俗言 (colloquial language), 俗文 (colloquial style). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ぞくぶ" (colloquial style), ぞく" (colloquial language, colloquialism), ぞく'" (colloquial language, popular saying, proverb), がぞく (classical and colloquial, refined and vulgar), そうろう (classical verbal ending equivalent to colloquial -masu, premature aging, premature ejaculation, tall building), "う"たい (colloquial style), "う"ぶ" (colloquial language or sentence), "う"やく (colloquial translation), "う" (alternate, colloquial language, hereafter, mutual, reciprocal), はなし"とば (colloquial expression, spoken language, spoken word), はくわ (colloquial Chinese). (various references) | |
Korean | 구어체. (various references) | |
Manx | jeh'n theay, cadjin (commonplace, lowbrow, normal, popular, unexceptional). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | olloquialcay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | coloquial. (various references) | |
Romanian | vorbit (spoken), familiar (common, familiar, familiarly, home, homelike, intimate, unceremonious, unceremoniously, usual), de conversaţie (conversational, interlocutory). (various references) | |
Russian | разговорный (conversational). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | kolokvijalan, govorni (conversational, lingual, speaking, spoken, vernacular). (various references) | |
Spanish | coloquial, familiar (chatty, chummy, dependant, dependent, familiar, family, homely, informal, kin, relation, relative). (various references) | |
Swedish | vardaglig (commonplace, everyday, every-day, ordinary, prosaic). (various references) | |
Turkish | konuşma diline ait, günlük konuşma dilinde. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | розмовний (chatty, conversational, idiomatic, idiomatical, interlocutory, vocal), нелітературний. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thông tục. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | colloquium. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "colloquial": colloquialism, colloquialisms, colloquialities, colloquiality, colloquially, colloquials. (additional references) | |
| |
"Colloquial" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: cloloquial, collaquial, collequial, colliquial, collluquial, colloguial, colloqial, colloqiual, colloqual, colloqui, colloquiel, colloquil, colloquiqal, colloquiua, colloqulial, colluquial, coloquial, coloquiel. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "colloquial" (pronounced kulō"kwēul) |
| 3 | -ē u l | industrial, actuarial, adverbial, adversarial, advertorial, aerial, alluvial, ambassadorial, antibacterial, arboreal, Ariel, arterial, bacterial, biaxial, bicentennial, biennial, binomial, biomaterial, bronchial, burial, centennial, cereal, ceremonial, coaxial, collegial, colonial, conspiratorial, convivial, curatorial, custodial, decennial, dictatorial, directorial, editorial, endometrial, entrepreneurial, equatorial, ethereal, extraterrestrial, extraterritorial, filial, fluvial, gubernatorial, immaterial, immemorial, imperial, terrestrial, territorial, testimonial, intracranial, janitorial, jovial, laryngeal, lineal, magisterial, malarial, managerial, marsupial, material, matrilineal, matrimonial, medial, memorial, menial, mercurial, microbial, millennial, ministerial, myocardial, nomenclatorial, parochial, patrilineal, perennial, pictorial, pluvial, polynomial, primordial, professorial, prosecutorial, proverbial, pseudopodial, quadrennial, radial, raptorial, remedial, reportorial, sartorial, secretarial, senatorial, serial, tracheal, triennial, trivial, tutorial, venereal, vestigial, vitriol. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-i-l-l-l-o-o-q-u" | |
-1 letter: colloquia. | |
-4 letters: loculi. | |
-5 letters: aulic, lilac, local, oculi, quail, quill. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-i-l-l-l-o-o-q-u" | |
+1 letter: colloquials. | |
+2 letters: colloquially. | |
+3 letters: colloquialism, colloquiality. | |
+4 letters: colloquialisms. | |
+5 letters: colloquialities. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
