from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Characteristic of or appropriate to the spoken language or to writing that seeks the effect of speech; informal.
- adj. Relating to conversation; conversational.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Denoting a manner of speaking or writing that is characteristic of familiar conversation; informal.
- adj. Of or pertaining to a conversation; conversational or chatty.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Pertaining to, or used in, conversation, esp. common and familiar conversation; conversational; hence, unstudied; informal.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to conversation; conversational.
- Peculiar or appropriate to the language of common or familiar conversation; belonging to ordinary, every-day speech: often especially applied to common words and phrases which are not admissible in elegant or formal speech.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation
But once it was realized that both speech and writing contained both formal and informal varieties, the term colloquial was not so effective, because it lacks an antonym apart from non-colloquial, and the like.
Although reverting to the colloquial is accepted when one wishes to avoid any confusion as to characterization. datingjesus
Johnson scorned what he called colloquial barbarisms.
We know how much this popular influence, or what I call the colloquial process, has infected the traditions of other nations, and it is very helpful to know this, in order to do justice to the Gospels.
People that are not really fluent in colloquial Spanish believe it is an innocuous word.
The word colloquial seemed to puzzle Singh, who remained silent, and
Ripton came on the unerring fist again and again; and if it was true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he required as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate interruption alone saved our friend from resembling that substance.
(in formal contexts) bearing the Colloquial label, the word colloquial began to undergo pejoration itself.
LAMB: The most colloquial -- in other words, the most conversational, the least formal?
He was after all a German émigré, whose command of English was no doubt shaky, particularly of the kind of colloquial idiom necessary to understand comedy in any medium.