Alphadictionary.com

collogue

Printable Version
Pronunciation: kê-log Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To confer confidentially in secret. 2. To intrigue or conspire secretly.

Notes: Here is an arcane word that appears in all the major and some minor dictionaries. The granddaddy of all English dictionaries, the Oxford, has examples only up to the end of the 19th century. It is used mostly as a verb, though is may be used as a noun referring to single incidents of colloguing.

In Play: Collogue might have a shade of innocence under some circumstances: "The heads of the old men bobbed about as they collogued among themselves at the club." But the smell of no-good hovers over it in most situations: "The two rascals collogued over the telephone to get straight the story they were about to tell the police."

Word History: Today's Good Word came from Latin colloquor "to converse" via Old French colloque "colloquy, colloquium". The shift from Q to G was the result of the influence of Old French colleguer "to collect, gather together" and/or French collegue "colleague". Latin colloquor is a combination of an assimilated form of com- "(together) with" + loquor "to talk, speak". Loquor came from a metathesized form PIE tolkw- "to speak", i.e. tlokw-. Since initial TL is not allowed in Latin, it was dropped. Tolk in Russian means "meaning, talk, rumor" and tolkovat', "to interpret, explain". English talk comes from the same source. (Today's Good Word was an idea of the mysterious Grogie, haunting the Agora with his arcane vocabulary now for some 15 years.)

Dr. Goodword, alphaDictionary.com

P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!