colloquy

From Middle English colloquies pl, from Latin colloquium (“conversation”),^[1] from com- (“together, with”) (English com-) + form of loquor (“speak”) (from which English locution and other words).^[2] Doublet of colloquium.

• (UK) enPR: kŏl'ə-kwē, IPA^(key): /ˈkɒ.lə.kwi/

• Audio (US):

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colloquy (countable and uncountable, plural colloquies)

1. A conversation or dialogue. [from 15th c.]
   • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:

     And she repeated the free caress into which her colloquies with Maisie almost always broke and which made the child feel that her affection at least was a gage of safety.

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “1/1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎^[1]:

     House Prees and Bloods […] were everywhere to be seen in earnest colloquy. For the matter was, that there was some sort of night-prowler about the school grounds.

2. (obsolete) A formal conference. [16th–17th c.]
3. (Christianity) A church court held by certain Reformed denominations. [from 17th c.]
4. A written discourse. [from 18th c.]
5. (law) A discussion during a trial in which a judge ensures that the defendant understands what is taking place in the trial and what his or her rights are.
   • 1999, H. L. Pohlman, The Whole Truth?: A Case of Murder on the Appalachian Trail, →ISBN, page 193:

     At the end of the colloquy, Judge Spicer asked Carr whether anyone had "pressured" him into accepting the deal.

6. (classical studies) A collection of scripted dialogues written as a textbook, or a set of exercises, to help students to practice and improve their Latin or Ancient Greek. See: Colloquy
   • 2021, Giuseppina Ieraci, “Erasmus' Colloquies: Latin and the Good Life”, in Center for Renaissance and Reformation Studies‎^[2]:

     The Colloquies are, in essence, a textbook of linguistic exercises to help students to practice and improve their Latin, but Erasmus also recognized his book’s potential for inspiring Europe with his humanist ideals.

   • 1919 January, Florence A. Gragg, “Two Schoolmasters of the Renaissance”, in The Classical Journal‎^[3], volume 14, number 4, pages 211-223:

     That a man should speak Latin was taken for granted, but to speak good Latin required training, and to give this training was the object of numerous school colloquies, which aimed to teach the Latin of Terence and of Cicero's Letters, ...

• (antonym(s) of “a conversation of multiple people”): soliloquy

• conversation, conference, discourse, discussion

• dialog, dialogue

• colloquium
• Colloquy (pedagogical dialogue)

colloquy (third-person singular simple present colloquies, present participle colloquying, simple past and past participle colloquied)

1. (intransitive, rare) To converse.