How to Use colloquialism in a Sentence

colloquialism

noun
  • His English is very good, but he has trouble understanding certain colloquialisms.
  • And in the case of Crikey steveirwini, a rare snail from northern Queensland, even the genus name honors Irwin, in the form of his favoured colloquialism.
    Kevin Thiele, Smithsonian, 28 Apr. 2018
  • Members are sometimes referred to by a pejorative colloquialism derived from the name of the group's founder — the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
    Grayson Quay, The Week, 10 July 2022
  • If nothing else, @amyklobuchar wins the first round of folksy colloquialisms that others might actually use.
    Dave Orrick, Twin Cities, 26 June 2019
  • Yes, part of it is their accents — Rae is Scottish and Smyth is Irish — but their enthusiasm and colloquialisms are addictive.
    Bill Goodykoontz, azcentral, 12 Dec. 2019
  • This exhibit starts with the abstract metaphor, or colloquialism, and works backwards.
    Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Know, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Both Rabaiotti and Caruso were surprised to find the proud history of animal farting in colloquialism around the world.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 3 Apr. 2018
  • In 2021, Central Catholic was built different, as the colloquialism goes.
    oregonlive, 4 Dec. 2021
  • Kid Fury and Todrick Hall bickering about white female pop stars using all the Black gay colloquialisms that have yet to be appropriated by said white women was gold.
    refinery29.com, 8 May 2018
  • Vernacular New York: The people there have odd accents and colloquialisms.
    Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press, 12 Jan. 2018
  • There is a correct—and incorrect—way to spell this fond colloquialism, however.
    Southern Living, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Like the complex Baltimore crime drama (which ran five seasons on the network), Thrones boasts braided story lines, inscrutable colloquialisms, and a never-ending pursuit to crown a king.
    Erik Malinowski, WIRED, 29 Mar. 2011
  • That snippet of Puerto Rican colloquialism — a tiny snapshot of everyday life on the streets of San Juan — traveled everywhere.
    Julyssa Lopez, Rolling Stone, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Hare's innovations to the text are mostly subtle and cosmetic: trimming some of the monologues, adding a few modern colloquialisms to the dialogue and shifting the later events outside rather than inside.
    Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 July 2019
  • The video shows the pair, along with Pat’s brother Robert, reminiscing on the birthday girl’s life — and even includes some hilarious Oklahoma colloquialism!
    Ale Russian, PEOPLE.com, 16 May 2018
  • Berry’s gift for language has been widely and justly celebrated, and his ability to render folksy colloquialisms into back-alley poetry is still the standard to which rock lyrics aspire.
    Jack Hamilton, Slate Magazine, 19 Mar. 2017
  • Only then does the human take over, cleaning up language and capturing more subtle nuances, for instance translating colloquialisms and metaphors that machines still struggle to translate as well as humans.
    Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 12 Dec. 2019
  • Another challenge of interpretation is conveying the little things, jokes, slang terms or colloquialisms, that can get lost in the conversation.
    Eli Meixler, Time, 13 June 2018
  • Osama bin Laden reportedly dropped a few American colloquialisms right before 9/11.
    Stephen A. Crockett Jr., The Root, 27 June 2018
  • Gundi means female thug, a Hindi colloquialism often used when referring to rebellious and independent women who live on their own terms.
    Tasnim Ahmed, Vogue, 12 Oct. 2022
  • The album, recorded in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, is riddled with references and colloquialism from the neighboring islands.
    Marjua Estevez, refinery29.com, 11 May 2022
  • Buckley’s dialogue sounds like the witty combination of the vulgar and formal in Restoration comedy, but sprinkled into it — and one must assume this is deliberate — are modern colloquialisms.
    John Vernon, New York Times, 1 June 2018
  • This colloquialism equally applies to Black businesses struggling to survive the covid-19 recession — after already being at a disadvantage because of decades of discrimination in lending and other business practices.
    Michelle Singletary, Washington Post, 20 Nov. 2020
  • The characters’ behavior and language have a colloquialism to them that is supplemented by popular Spanish music, celebrations and, importantly, a sense of melodrama that has always been a distinctive part of local storytelling.
    Jamie Lang, Variety, 7 Oct. 2021
  • By eschewing the long-standing colloquialisms associated with the drug, the industry is essentially rebranding itself in an effort to appear more legitimate and professional.
    Noelle Crombie, OregonLive.com, 18 Aug. 2017
  • Occasionally, an American character uses distinctly British Isles colloquialisms in conversation, but that sort of thing is often tricky when writing characters from another culture.
    Sam Hurwitt, The Mercury News, 14 Apr. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colloquialism.' 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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