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”
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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:
Cartwright's colleague Alan Wright, added: "We want to engage people in nature and the best way to do it is do things next to where they live. This is a perfect example."
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Boor began investigating how cleaning agents and chemical disinfectants affect indoor environments during the COVID-19 pandemic with his colleague Nusrat Jung, a Purdue Assistant Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026
Levine and a colleague, Monique Johnson, decided to ask for outside help by launching an ad hoc podcast, Portrait of Possibilities, and they enlisted other experts such as Sullivan to be guests.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
My colleague and WSJ columnist Greg Ip says that view is flawed and offered his take.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
He and his colleague Charles Sumner Tainter went to work in Bell's Washington laboratory, using their own ideas and input from other scientists whom they had contacted by letter and telegram.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Hablitz and her colleagues suggest that another part of the problem may be that the brain is no longer clearing inflammatory signals effectively.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
In a landmark 2020 study, Hablitz, Nedergaard, and colleagues demonstrated that glymphatic function follows daily cycles even independently of sleep, establishing a direct link between circadian biology and the brain's waste-clearing system.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
The health board said colleagues at NHS Tayside remain on standby but both emergency departments are now better placed to support necessary care.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
This time, Kavanaugh referred the issue to his colleagues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
One of Crandell’s colleagues had studied the area; the only signs of eruptions over the past thousand years at Coldwater II were marks of hot ash.
From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone
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.
