Etymology

colleague

col·league
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Today it means: A fellow member of a profession, staff, academic faculty or other organization; an associate, a workmate. Full definition →

Middle French collegue ← Latin collēga
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The story

  1. Latin · derived fromcollēga“a partner in office”
  2. Middle French · borrowed fromcollegue
  3. English todaycolleague

From Middle French collegue, from Latin collēga (“a partner in office”), from com- (“with”) + lēgō (“to send on an embassy”), from lēx (“law”).

Words from the same roots

Latincollēga all →

collogue

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.