Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Colloquial style or quality.
- n. A colloquial expression.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A word or phrase peculiar to the language of common or familiar conversation. Synonyms Slang, etc. See
cant . - n. Colloquial style, quality, or usage: as, “a transcript of the colloquialism of the day,”
Wiktionary
- n. A colloquial word or phrase; a common spoken expression, often regional.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A colloquial expression, not employed in formal discourse or writing.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech
Etymologies
- colloquial + -ism (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Jake's obsessing about his "colloquialism" - meanwhile Obama props his question up to deliver some "on message" remarks regarding energy and healthcare ...”
“She seemed to delight in the word, and every time she pronounced it a light came into her old face, and I began to understand her and to feel that I could place her, to use a colloquialism which is so expressive that perhaps its use may be forgiven.”
“A definition of the terms: "colloquialism" and "idiom" Instances of their use in the Speech on Conciliation.”
“African-American vernacular" is simply a colloquialism, meaning it is unacceptable in any formal situation.”
“Something of the same brassy colloquialism has evidently now burrowed its way onto our wall labels and into our catalogue entries, and would have refused to budge if a few of us had not learned to love our inner stickler, and accepted that there are certain limits to what one can definitely say about the original state of very old things.”
“It's eating our seed corn," said Sen. Bill Nelson D-Fla., referencing the colloquialism that when times are tough, and one is hungry, you're supposed to plant seeds for crop, not eat them.”
“It was no coincidence that willy is the standard British colloquialism for the male sex organ.”
“A: “Who all,” like “you all,” is a common redundant suffixal colloquialism and may be used without disadvantage in all but the most snobbish circles, even though it is not standard English.”
“The trend has become so prevalent that the term "cougar" is now a commonly used colloquialism.”
“The Obama administration has been trying to bridge that gap with noble efforts like its recruitment website teach.gov and, most recently, with the president's reference to that South Korean colloquialism in his State of the Union.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘colloquialism’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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Linguistic Terms
Words that (mostly) only linguists know.
arpabet, protologism, diacritic, macron, macaronic, capitonym, grapheme, boustrophedon, allograph, analphabetic, idiomatic, portmanteau and 40 more...
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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Favourite Words
Just a bunch of words I like and wish I used more often in everyday speech.
adroit, soporific, ostensibly, prolific, auspicious, brio, mucilage, bromide, opprobrium, aplomb, invective, recalcitrant and 114 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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Yet more words
hootowling, hoot owl, midday, prohibitive, shutdown, gerund, tripe, doweling, detestable, good measure, boojum, undergirding and 167 more...
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Rita's List of Words
preliminary, rudimentary, stance, conduit, locale, implicit, vicissitude, empirical, repository, apophthegm, apothegm, invariable and 431 more...
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kevincooper's Words
prosopopeia, lisle, magisterial, zeitgeist, zeugma, bloviate, apocryphal, bon mot, cacophony, euphony, brigandier, micturition and 313 more...
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They Roll Off The Tongue
Words that are just fun to say. Entirely subjective, but I like 'em regardless. A complement to the list They Stumble Off The Tongue.
verisimilitude, parsimonious, soliloquy, insipid, ontological, plentifully, je ne sais quoi, misanthropic, bourgeoisie, parallelable, inclemency, frigidity and 159 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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INTERP - VOCABULARY
The vocabulary of conference interpreting. I commend this list to those who want to know more about the profession and to those who wish to organize their knowledge about the profession. To aspirin...
retour language, A-language, B-language, C-language, relay language, take sy on relay, language booth, booth meeting, mic, mike, mission, freelance interpr... and 2086 more...
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Words That Sound Dirty but Really Aren't
annals, assassinate, bisect, bubbly, caucus, caulk, colloquialism, concoct, condominium, congeal, congenital, convex and 131 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for colloquialism.
bounceb1tch found this very useful for my research :-) Sep 19, 2012
uselessness Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. Jan 25, 2007