sb. [ad. L. colloqui-um speaking together, conversation, conference, f. col- together + -loquium speaking, f. loqui to speak.]
1. A talking together; a conversation, dialogue. Also, a written dialogue, as Erasmus’s Colloquies.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xli. (1887), 238. All conferences, all both priuate and publike colloquies.
1660. Blome, Fanat. Hist., ii. 16. Frantick men that boasted of visions, and colloquies with God.
1755. Jortin, Erasm., I. 296. The Colloquies of Erasmus … well deserve to be read.
1829. Southey (title), Sir Thomas More: or Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., II. xxii. 65. The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty call from Miss Ophelia.
1885. Life Sir R. Christison, I. 168. Our host in the course of our colloquy, said, [etc.].
b. (without pl.) Converse, dialogue.
1817. Byron, Manfred, III. i. Shunning … All further colloquy.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 36. All blunderers, when they chance to make In colloquy some small mistake.
1850. Grote, Greece, II. lxx. (1862), VI. 267. To invite the natives to amicable colloquy.
† 2. A meeting for conference.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 263/2. Cluniake, where was … appointed a secret meeting or colloquie between the Pope and Lewis the French King.
1661. Bramhall, Just Vind., ii. 22. Debated between the Catholick Bishops, and the schismatical Donatists at the Colloquie of Carthage.
1679. Trial of White & Other Jesuits, 12. They adjourned into several Clubs or Colloquies, or what you please to call them.
3. Eccl. In the Reformed Genevan or Presbyterian Churches, a church court composed of the pastors and representative elders of the churches of a district, with judicial and legislative functions over these churches; = CLASSIS, PRESBYTERY.
a. 1672. P. Nye, Oath Suprem. (1683), 54. There are Synods, Consistories, Colloquies, and other Ecclesiastical Courts.
1692. J. Quick, Synodicon, xxxvii. In every Province the Churches shall be divided according to their numbers and conveniency of neighbour places into Colloquies or Classes.
1846. J. S. Burn, For. Prot. Refugees, 45. Charges against the moral character of this minister … were entertained by the colloquy, which pronounced sentence in 1647.
1862. Latham, in Ansted, Channel Isl., III. xv. (ed. 2), 367. The Curate of St. John’s parish died, and the colloquy appointed to the vacant benefice.
1889. A. H. Drysdale, Hist. Presbyt. Eng., I. 173. The Church Courts were the ‘Consistory’ and the ‘Colloquy’ or Presbytery meeting quarterly, and the Synod every two years in Jersey and Guernsey alternately. The Colloquies and Consistories were, as at Geneva, strict courts of morals, fitted in to the general civil jurisdiction.
Hence Colloquy v. intr., to hold colloquy.
1868. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1879), II. 142. They colloquied at much length.
