Word.ws English Dictionary

pseudo-colloquial

pseudo-colloquial adjective: apparently, but not actually, colloquial.

Adjective

pseudo-colloquial

  1. Apparently, but not actually, colloquial.
    • Robert Lowell, first announcing flatly that Racine is untranslatable, puts his Alexandrines into speakable, nontinkling English couplets, a great feat and one that goes far to contradict his own statement. Jacques Barzun’s translation of Beaumarchais is properly sparky and pseudocolloquial, but...1961 August, Phoebe Lou Adams, “Potpourri”, in The Atlantic
    • This selection from Gadsby, a novel by E. V. Wright, has a number of traits that might be brought out in a careful literary exegesis – its mannered use of pseudo-colloquial phrase perhaps the most prominent trait: ‘bunch of bright young folks’, ‘up-and-coming activity’, and so on.1974 January, Richard W. Bailey, “Review: Stylistics Today”, in Foundations of Language, volume 11, number 1, →JSTOR, page 135

Forms of pseudo-colloquial

alternative formpseudocolloquial

Origin of pseudo-colloquial

From pseudo- + colloquial.

Questions about pseudo-colloquial

What does pseudo-colloquial mean?
Pseudo-colloquial means apparently, but not actually, colloquial.
What part of speech is pseudo-colloquial?
Pseudo-colloquial is an adjective.

Words near pseudo-colloquial in the dictionary

  1. pseudo-chromesthesia
  2. pseudo-city code
  3. pseudo-city codes
  4. pseudo-Clement
  5. pseudo-Clementine
  6. pseudo-colloquial
  7. pseudo-column
  8. pseudo-columns
  9. pseudo-complement
  10. pseudo-complements
  11. pseudo-compliment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pseudo-colloquial (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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