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Wednesday August 18, 1999

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colloquial \kuh-LOH-kwee-uhl\ , adjective:
Characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation; "wrote her letters in a colloquial style"; "the broken syntax and casual enunciation of colloquial English"; hence, unstudied; informal; as, colloquial phrases; a colloquial style.

To use a colloquial phrase, such sentiments...do one's heart good.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The abandonment of...poetic diction for the colloquial language of real life.
-- John Richard Green

His [Samuel Johnson's] colloquial talents were, indeed, of the highest order.
-- Macaulay

Colloquial is from the Latin colloquium, a conversation, from col- (com-), with, together + loquor, loqui, to speak.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for colloquial

 

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