colleague

(kŏl'ēg')
n.
A fellow member of a profession, staff, or academic faculty; an associate. See synonyms at partner.

[French collègue, from Latin collēga : com-, com- + lēgāre, to depute.]

colleagueship col'league·ship' n.

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A colleague (etymologically 'one chosen along with another') is a fellow worker, typically a white-collar worker. The Old English (up to 1150)D noted that the word was 'not applied to partners in trade or manufacture', i.e. blue-collar workers. A comrade was originally a 'room-mate' (via French from Spanish camarada). Members of the armed forces are comrades and not colleagues; and so formerly were (and to a limited exent still are) members of trade unions and of communist parties (who used 'Comrade' as a personal title in order to avoid bourgeois designations such as 'Mr').

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Fellow member of a profession, association, occupation, or organization. Colleagues are important for mutual consultations and discussion as well as for friendship. The basis of being one’s colleague is respect for one’s position and training.

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noun

1. One that is very similar to another in rank or position: coequal, compeer, equal, equivalent, fellow, peer. See same/different/compare.
2. One who is united in a relationship with another: affiliate, ally, associate, cohort, confederate, copartner, fellow, partner. See connect.

n

Definition: associate, fellow worker
Antonyms: antagonist, detractor, enemy, opponent, opposer

IN BRIEF: A person who works in the same office in the same profession.

My colleague has many great ideas that I can use as well.

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For a list of words related to colleague, see:

• Respectful or Admiring Reference

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See words rhyming with "colleague."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Colleague.

Common misspelling(s) of colleague

• collegue

Dansk (Danish)
n. - kollega, medarbejder

Nederlands (Dutch)
collega

Français (French)
n. - collègue, confrère, cons¯ur

Deutsch (German)
n. - Kollege, Amtskollege, Fachkollege

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - συνάδελφος

Italiano (Italian)
collega

Português (Portuguese)
n. - colega

Русский (Russian)
коллега, сотрудник

Español (Spanish)
n. - colega

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kollega, arbetskamrat

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
同事, 同僚

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 同事, 同僚

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 동료

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 同僚, 同業者

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) زميل‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮עמית‬

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