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
  • At its colloquial heart, the debate is about whether poppadoms are food or snack.
    — Ali Watkins, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2024
  • Its name refers to the colloquial term once used for Papaya—paw-paw.
    — Kelsey Glennon, Southern Living, 30 May 2026
  • But baseball teams can be built with paper, in the colloquial sense.
    — Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Aug. 2022
  • Because back nine is close to backside, and backside is just far too colloquial.
    — Paulina Dedaj, FOXNews.com, 8 Apr. 2025
  • The language is colloquial, down-to-earth.
    — Andrew Rojecki, The Conversation, 21 Oct. 2025
  • The first is in a colloquial sense focused on ethics and morality.
    — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Gnat isn't a scientific term so much as a colloquial one.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 10 Apr. 2026
  • 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
  • At times, lines that are meant to be conversational or colloquial feel rote or cliched.
    — Carole V. Bell, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2023
  • The city of big apples, hand-​tossed pizzas and the colloquial adverb deadass.
    — Lizz Schumer, PEOPLE, 27 Jan. 2026
  • To push the colloquial gold envelope even further, Swift added a chain belt.
    — Stacia Datskovska, WWD, 3 Jan. 2025
  • Some of those species can turn up in bouillabaisse, added to the soup as an ingredient with the colloquial name of gurnard.
    — Gary Stix, Scientific American, 26 Sep. 2024
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Even bad language can sound more colloquial and informal, at least among the right audience.
    — Kathryn Vasel, CNN, 22 July 2019
  • This isn’t about a desire for simpler, colloquial language.
    — James Folta, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Gorsuch used his short opinion on the dry topic of debt collection to declare a more colloquial style.
    — Jill Barton, The Conversation, 24 Jan. 2025
  • There was good and evil in the world—not in the colloquial sense but in the literal, supernatural sense.
    — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 1 Nov. 2024
  • 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
  • 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
  • Many of us are accustomed to the common names of the moon and its cycles, but there are also a multitude of colloquial names.
    — Caralin Nunes, The Arizona Republic, 18 Jan. 2024
  • Sadly, though, the colloquial moniker—once used jokingly—is starting to ring a little too true lately.
    — Scott Christian, Esquire, 15 Aug. 2017
  • 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
  • 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
  • To put in the capital — in colloquial terms, America is not a deadbeat nation.
    — Jim Tankersley, New York Times, 2 May 2023
  • The judges discussed, ruling that the word was usable because of its colloquial usage, the paper reported.
    — Leah Asmelash, CNN, 10 July 2021
  • In a market where there is a colloquial term for consumers who want their spirits bottled at the highest strength possible (proof hounds), this low-strength whiskey is a bold move.
    — Chris Perugini, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Some users have begun to call ivermectin more colloquial names, like Moo Juice, because many have been ingesting the gel version.
    — NBC News, 26 Aug. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colloquial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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