colleague
Americannoun
-
colleagues
plural
noun
Usage
What does colleague mean? A colleague is someone you work with or someone who’s in the same profession as you, especially a peer within that profession. Colleague can be a synonym for coworker, which is someone who has the same employer as you. But it also used to refer to people who have different employers but who work in the same or a very similar profession, especially when they regularly interact or share knowledge. For example, two medical researchers who work for different universities but who collaborate to publish research findings would be called colleagues. Example: Sarah has received an outpouring of support from her fellow attorneys at the firm as well as many of her colleagues in the legal community.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of colleague
First recorded in 1515–25; from Middle French collegue, from Latin collēga, equivalent to col- “with, together” ( see col- 1) + -lēga, derivative of legere “to choose, gather”
Compare meaning
How does colleague compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A colleague is someone you work with at your job. When you are a teacher, the other teachers are your colleagues. When you work as a cashier at 7-11, the guy at the deli counter is your colleague as well. Your colleagues are usually people at the same level or rank as you are. You would not usually consider your boss to be a colleague. This noun is from French collègue, from Latin collega "a person chosen along with another," from the prefix com- "with" plus legare "to appoint as a deputy."
Vocabulary lists containing colleague
Franklin D. Roosevelt, "A Date That Will Live In Infamy" (1941)
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Vocabulary from "There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy," by Sherry Turkle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
When news of his death emerged, the university said in a statement it was "shocked and saddened" by the death of a former colleague.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
A ballroom dancer who coddles his pet rats—Fred and Ginger—Declan rides a moped that his colleague, Sara Xiu, describes as “that pitiful hair-dryer on wheels.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Ron spasms under his desk, stifled by the small space; a colleague dries a co-worker’s hair with a piece of paper after blowing bubbles in it; Ron does the loudest meal prep you’ll ever hear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
As my colleague Fred Kaplan explained yesterday, Iranian hard-liners want to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026
Sometimes he was on his way but needed to stop in to have one last forty-five-minute conversation with a colleague before he got into the car.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
To get your weekend off to a fun start, my colleagues recommend:
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026
Farage has also received financial support for his security and social media staff from the convicted fraudster George Cottrell, known to colleagues as "Posh George".
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
In 2022, Jaiswal and colleagues sought support from the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, which funds research intended to rethink how scientists study brain resilience and neurodegenerative disease.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
The assignment surprised some colleagues, in part because she was gone and back in 48 hours.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
They were, they insisted, interested only in chemical processes which they could reproduce in their own laboratories and could then have certified by their colleagues.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
