as in dialects
a word or phrase that is used mostly in informal speech; a colloquial expression
His English is very good, but he has trouble understanding certain colloquialisms.
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for colloquialisms
Noun
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Human communication with honeyguides in northern Mozambique occurs in local dialects.—
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Mar. 2026 -
Not between English and other languages but between the dialects spoken by different corners of the industry.—
Amber Nigam,
Harvard Business Review,
11 Mar. 2026
Noun
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If the assignment is to translate something from a foreign language, there are plenty of tools and resources that can do it for you, including by recognizing and figuratively translating idioms.—
Ethan Siegel,
Big Think,
25 Mar. 2026
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Those books introduced me to a vision of American teenage life and taught me the rhythms and idioms of American English, nuances that would later replace my Britishisms and shape my career as a journalist.—
Faith Karimi,
CNN Money,
17 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Beyond the music, these earbuds offer high-accuracy AI translation for 100 languages via the Soundcore app and support wireless charging, providing up to 10 hours of playback on a single charge and 42 hours total with the case.—
Juhi Wadia,
PC Magazine,
31 Mar. 2026
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His books have been published in more than 55 languages with more than 24 million copies in print, according to a Drake University news release.—
Lucia Cheng,
Des Moines Register,
31 Mar. 2026
Noun
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In the October 2025 study that followed families over time, children who spent more time with digital media at age 2 tended to have smaller vocabularies at age 3, regardless of the child’s temperament or the caregiver’s personality traits.—
Miriam Fauzia,
Dallas Morning News,
2 Mar. 2026
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Teams were asked to learn new interfaces, adopt new vocabularies, and take responsibility for outputs whose behavior remained probabilistic rather than deterministic.—
Alexander Puutio,
Forbes.com,
28 Jan. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Colloquialisms.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/colloquialisms. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.
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