colleague

From Middle French collegue, from Latin collēga (“a partner in office”), from com- (“with”) + lēgō (“to send on an embassy”), from lēx (“law”).

• enPR: kôl′ēg, Rhymes: -iːɡ
• Hyphenation: col‧league
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒliːɡ/
• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑliɡ/

  • Audio (Southern California):

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔliːɡ/
• (Indic, Malaysia, Singapore) enPR: kəlēg′, IPA^(key): /kəˈliːɡ/
• (Hong Kong) enPR: kôlēg′, IPA^(key): /kɔˈliːɡ/

colleague (plural colleagues)

1. A fellow member of a profession, staff, academic faculty or other organization; an associate, a workmate.
   • 2013 June 29, “A punch in the gut”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, pages 72–3:

     Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. […] Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism. Dr Yoshimoto and his colleagues would like to add liver cancer to that list.

• Not to be confused with college (which is a distant cognate, from Latin), and collage.

• coworker
• workmate
• confrère
• See also Thesaurus:associate

• collegial
• collegiate

colleague (third-person singular simple present colleagues, present participle colleaguing, simple past and past participle colleagued)

1. (transitive) To unite or associate with another or with others.

   Young Fortinbras,
   Holding a weak supposal of our worth
   ...Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
   ...hath not failed to pester us with message
   Importing the surrender of those lands
   Lost by his father. - Hamlet (Act I, Scene 2)

• “colleague”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “colleague”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.