How to Use colloquial in a Sentence

colloquial

adjective

• Yet, most of us think of road rage as the colloquial term for any type of angry driving.
  — Elizabeth Bernstein, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2022
• The first is in a colloquial sense focused on ethics and morality.
  — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 27 Apr. 2018
• But baseball teams can be built with paper, in the colloquial sense.
  — Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Aug. 2022
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• At times, lines that are meant to be conversational or colloquial feel rote or cliched.
  — Carole V. Bell, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2023
• 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
• 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
• Few would imagine any equivalence between this kind of fear and the horribly colloquial sense terror has taken on in our world.
  — J.j. Gould, The New Republic, 19 Apr. 2018
• Even bad language can sound more colloquial and informal, at least among the right audience.
  — Kathryn Vasel, CNN, 22 July 2019
• 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
• 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
• There is some colloquial evidence to support the idea that sales of fireworks have risen considerably since lockdown.
  — Time, 23 June 2020
• The judges discussed, ruling that the word was usable because of its colloquial usage, the paper reported.
  — Leah Asmelash, CNN, 10 July 2021
• That link has given the illness its more colloquial name: Broken-heart syndrome.
  — Karin Brulliard, chicagotribune.com, 19 Oct. 2017
• This can be done by tapping into colloquial language and involving their unique customs and heritage.
  — Donald Williams, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021
• But there’s another, more colloquial name that fits even better.
  — Casey Michel, The New Republic, 4 Aug. 2022
• To put in the capital — in colloquial terms, America is not a deadbeat nation.
  — Jim Tankersley, New York Times, 2 May 2023
• As a result, the voice that emerges reads as colloquial, but also at times as a collective representation of thought.
  — Oliver Munday, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2022
• The phrase The Firm is a colloquial (albeit cynical) term used to describe the royal family.
  — Paulina Jayne Isaac, Glamour, 4 Mar. 2021
• Top surgery: Colloquial way of describing gender affirming surgery on the chest.
  — Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY, 15 June 2017
• Sadly, though, the colloquial moniker—once used jokingly—is starting to ring a little too true lately.
  — Scott Christian, Esquire, 15 Aug. 2017
• This is true, not in the colloquial sense but in the literal sense: rocket science is a domain in which Musk has demonstrated some expertise.
  — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2022
• Heat dome: a more colloquial term that describes a hot, high-pressure system that isn’t moving anywhere anytime soon.
  — Grace Toohey, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2023
• But its effects on deer, elk and others have inspired a creepier colloquial name: Zombie deer disease.
  — Frank Sargeant, al.com, 23 June 2019
• Presidents can’t speak in public on this subject in such a casual, colloquial manner, and a tone of calming down his caucus.
  — Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 17 Mar. 2022
• 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

Last Updated: 27 Mar 2024