adjective
- used in ordinary or familiar conversation; not formal or literary
Usage: linguistics
Examples
- The essay was too colloquial for an academic paper.
- She used colloquial expressions that her grandmother didn’t understand.
- The dictionary marks certain words as colloquial rather than standard.
- His colloquial speech made him popular with younger audiences.
- The novel captures the colloquial language of rural communities.
- Teachers often discourage colloquial phrases in formal writing.