colloquialism
/kəˈloʊ.kwi.əˌlɪz.əm/noun
colloquialism is a noun meaning “A colloquial word or phrase; a common spoken expression” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-O-L-L-O-Q-U-I-A-L-I-S-M and has 6 syllables, and it appears about once in every 10 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of colloquialism is colloquialisms.
What does colloquialism mean?
noun
- 1
A colloquial word or phrase; a common spoken expression.
- 2
A colloquial manner of speaking.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce colloquialism?
- UK /kəˈləʊ.kwi.əˌlɪz.əm/
- US /kəˈloʊ.kwi.əˌlɪz.əm/
Colloquialism has 6 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-colloquialism.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of colloquialism
- colloquialisms plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is colloquialism?
Colloquialism appears about once in every 10 million words in written English, the 92,628th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Colloquialism in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | expression familière |
| German | Umgangssprachausdruck , Gemeinsprache, Umgangssprache, Alltagssprache, volkstümlicher Sprachgebrauch |
| Portuguese | coloquialismo |
| Spanish | coloquialismo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.