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.

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

• conversation, conference, discourse, discussion

• dialog, dialogue

• colloquium

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

1. (intransitive, rare) To converse.