Find the word definition

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Colloquies

Colloquy \Col"lo*quy\, n.; pl. Colloquies. [L. colloquium. See Collocution.]

  1. Mutual discourse of two or more persons; conference; conversation.

    They went to Worms, to the colloquy there about religion.
    --A. Wood.

  2. In some American colleges, a part in exhibitions, assigned for a certain scholarship rank; a designation of rank in collegiate scholarship.

Wiktionary
colloquies

n. (plural of colloquy English)

Wikipedia
Colloquies

Colloquies is one of the many works of the "Prince of Christian Humanists", Desiderius Erasmus. Published in 1518, the pages "...held up contemporary religious practices for examination in a more serious but still pervasively ironic tone". Christian Humanists viewed Erasmus as their leader in the early 16th century. Erasmus' works had greater meaning to those learned few who had a larger knowledge of Latin and Greek. Colloquies in Latin means a formal written dialogue, thus in his book Erasmus explores man's reaction to others in conversations.

The Colloquies is a collection of dialogues on a wide variety of subjects. They began in the late 1490s as informal Latin exercises for Erasmus' own pupils. In about 1522 he began to perceive the possibilities this form might hold for continuing his campaign for the gradual enlightenment and reform of all Christendom. Between that date and 1533 twelve new editions appeared, each larger and more serious than the last, until eventually some fifty individual colloquies were included ranging over such varied subjects as war, travel, religion, sleep, beggars, funerals, and literature. All of these works were in the same graceful, easy style and gentle humor that made them continually sought as schoolboy exercises and light reading for generations.

Usage examples of "colloquies".

I thought I was dreaming when I heard a young woman in her position reasoning with more acuteness than Minerva displays in her colloquies with Telemachus.

And she repeated the free caress into which her colloquies with Maisie almost always broke and which made the child feel that her affection at least was a gage of safety.

Wix, as the fruit of more midnight colloquies, once went so far as to observe that she really believed it was all that was wanted to save him.