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Who was Alexander Graham Bell's colleague during the invention of the telephone?

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colleague

American  

[kol-eeg] / ˈkɒl ig /

noun

colleagues plural

1. an associate.

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colleague British  

/ ˈkɒliːɡ /

noun

1. a fellow worker or member of a staff, department, profession, etc

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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

• colleagueship
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• colleagues
  plural

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:

• colleague vs. coworker

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

colleague colleagues

Kelly's former colleague Anne Hailes paid tribute to him on social media, calling him a "big man who will leave big memories, RIP".

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

He told one colleague at the court that he thought the woman, a lawyer from Malaysia in her 30s, was part of an Israeli intelligence operation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

My colleague responded in shock: “You never check in with her? I email her every morning and tell her what I’m doing.”

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026

Around the Caltech campus, Marcus remained so unaffected and so focused on his research that one colleague quipped that he “must have spent his million dollars on a new sweater.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026

In desperation, the two physicians sent for their esteemed colleague Dr. Benjamin Rush.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy

But she couldn’t let this go; her colleagues had handled Salute’s case, and she remembered it well.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Smith quit the ASA around the same time, demoralized by what he saw as a lack of self-awareness among his colleagues, whose work focused on the world’s wrongs while failing to recognize their own.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

She quickly settled in as colleagues made her feel part of the team.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

Yang and his colleagues created the first high-resolution, 3D computer simulations of Venusian rifts.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026

Beloved and respected by colleagues and clients alike, they could hire whomever they pleased.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Related Words

• aide
• ally
• assistant
• buddy
• co-worker
• companion
• comrade
• friend
• partner
• teammate