English Online Dictionary. What means colleague? What does colleague mean?
English
Etymology
From Middle French collegue, from Latin collēga (“a partner in office”), from com- (“with”) + lēgō (“to send on an embassy”), from lēx (“law”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: kôl′iːg, Rhymes: -iːɡ
- Hyphenation: col‧league
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkɒliːɡ/
- (Canada, US) IPA(key): /ˈkɑliɡ/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈkɔliːɡ/
- (Indic, Malaysia, Singapore) enPR: kəliːg′, IPA(key): /kaˈliːɡ/
- (Hong Kong) enPR: kôliːg′, IPA(key): /kɔˈliːɡ/
Noun
colleague (plural colleagues)
- A fellow member of a profession, staff, academic faculty or other organization; an associate, a workmate.
Usage notes
- Not to be confused with college (which is a distant cognate, from Latin), and collage.
Synonyms
- coworker
- workmate
- confrère
- See also Thesaurus:associate
Derived terms
Related terms
- collegial
- collegiate
Translations
Verb
colleague (third-person singular simple present colleagues, present participle colleaguing, simple past and past participle colleagued)
- (transitive) To unite or associate with another or with others.
- Young Fortinbras,/ Holding a weak supposal of our worth/...Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,/...hath not failed to pester us with message/ Importing the surrender of those lands/Lost by his father. - Hamlet (Act I, Scene 2)
Further reading
- “colleague”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “colleague”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.