Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being colloquial.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The state or condition of being colloquial; colloquialness.
  • noun countable A colloquial term, utterance, etc.; a colloquialism.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

colloquial +‎ -ity

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Examples

  • He is apt to burlesque the lighter colloquiality, and it is only in the more serious and most tragical junctures that his people utter themselves with veracious simplicity and dignity.

    Mark Twain: A Biography 2003

  • He is apt to burlesque the lighter colloquiality, and it is only in the more serious and most tragical junctures that his people utter themselves with veracious simplicity and dignity.

    Mark Twain, a Biography. Complete Albert Bigelow Paine 1899

  • He is apt to burlesque the lighter colloquiality, and it is only in the more serious and most tragical junctures that his people utter themselves with veracious simplicity and dignity.

    Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 Albert Bigelow Paine 1899

  • Yet what Arnold perceived to be the weaknesses of Clough's poetry are precisely what, over time, have come to seem its strengths: a prosey colloquiality which at times verges on awkwardness, a preference for honesty and sarcasm over suavity and tact, a direct criticism of modern life, a naming of things as themselves.

    Books news, reviews and author interviews | guardian.co.uk 2009

  • About calling it a theory, I don’t get your idea of colloquiality.

    Here it comes...EuroScopes! - The Panda's Thumb 2006

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