How to Use colloquial in a Sentence

colloquial

adjective
Definition of colloquialnext
Synonyms for colloquialnext
  • Yet, most of us think of road rage as the colloquial term for any type of angry driving.
    — Elizabeth Bernstein, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2022
  • But baseball teams can be built with paper, in the colloquial sense.
    — Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Aug. 2022
  • The first is in a colloquial sense focused on ethics and morality.
    — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 27 Apr. 2018
  • At its colloquial heart, the debate is about whether poppadoms are food or snack.
    — Ali Watkins, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2024
  • The Stanford team monitored a group of parrotlets, which is the colloquial term for a group of very small parrot species.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 25 Nov. 2019
  • The red color was caused by smoke particles — and is not to be confused with a blood moon, the colloquial term for the reddish tinge of a lunar eclipse.
    — Nora Mishanec, SFChronicle.com, 1 Oct. 2020
  • There are a few moments in the book, though, when Kendi uses the word in a more colloquial, less rigorous sense.
    — Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 12 Aug. 2019
  • It’s like a colloquial symbol that can mean so many things, and in this movie it’s almost never used in the regular way.
    — Chloe Schama, Vogue, 24 Sep. 2020
  • Anyone who has ever worked in a cannery knows that 'mug up' is a colloquial term for coffee break.
    — Laine Welch, Anchorage Daily News, 29 Apr. 2018
  • Many of us are accustomed to the common names of the moon and its cycles, but there are also a multitude of colloquial names.
    — Caralin Nunes, The Arizona Republic, 18 Jan. 2024
  • The random walk is a colloquial term for a way to create a path based on random decisions at junctions.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 30 Mar. 2020
  • David has also, in a more colloquial sense, played himself.
    — M.d. Rodrigues, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2024
  • Since then, Bajans (a colloquial name for the people of Barbados) have been joined by folks all over the world to take part in this centuries-old tradition.
    — Jihan Forbes, Allure, 8 Aug. 2022
  • The Ukrainian defensive line runs the length of the de facto border of the Donbas, the colloquial name for the Donets Basin, a mining and industrial region.
    — Nils Adler, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2022
  • The phrase The Firm is a colloquial (albeit cynical) term used to describe the royal family.
    — Paulina Jayne Isaac, Glamour, 4 Mar. 2021
  • That’s a colloquial name for beech blight aphids, a native insect that feeds in aggregations on beech.
    — Miri Talabac, Baltimore Sun, 1 Sep. 2022
  • His books were filled with lengthy quotes from primary sources as well as colloquial asides and comparisons to modern life.
    — Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 31 Oct. 2022
  • Catracha is the colloquial word for woman in the founders’ hometown of Santa Elena, Honduras.
    — Shayna Harris, Forbes, 16 Sep. 2021
  • There is even a name for them: zama zamas, a Zulu colloquial term meaning to persevere, to keep at it.
    — Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2022
  • At times, lines that are meant to be conversational or colloquial feel rote or cliched.
    — Carole V. Bell, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2023
  • Each voice is colloquial and discretionary, engaging in some of the same subjects and variables, but the access and vantage points are key.
    — Michael W. Twitty, Bon Appétit, 13 May 2021
  • That link has given the illness its more colloquial name: Broken-heart syndrome.
    — Karin Brulliard, chicagotribune.com, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Some users have begun to call ivermectin more colloquial names, like Moo Juice, because many have been ingesting the gel version.
    — NBC News, 26 Aug. 2021
  • To put in the capital — in colloquial terms, America is not a deadbeat nation.
    — Jim Tankersley, New York Times, 2 May 2023
  • The speech, a mix of Mr. Obama’s often lofty rhetoric and punchy, colloquial language, drew more scattered applause than in earlier years.
    — Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear, New York Times, 12 Jan. 2016
  • As India braces for the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, some Indians have come up with a jugaad—the colloquial term for a hack—that might prove to be a menace for the country.
    — Niharika Sharma, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2021
  • Sadly, though, the colloquial moniker—once used jokingly—is starting to ring a little too true lately.
    — Scott Christian, Esquire, 15 Aug. 2017
  • The judges discussed, ruling that the word was usable because of its colloquial usage, the paper reported.
    — Leah Asmelash, CNN, 10 July 2021
  • The number 420 itself has also come to be associated with marijuana and smoking and is often used as a colloquial term for the flower and the act of consuming it.
    — Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY, 20 Apr. 2024
  • Some have even dared to use the most colloquial register, which is exceptionally offensive when speaking about royalty.
    — Tamara Loos, Foreign Affairs, 7 Dec. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colloquial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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