interlocutor

What it means

1. A person who takes part in dialogue or conversation: a locutive partner.

   Explanations which continually remind one's interlocutor of one's ignorance are a great damper upon the easy flow of talk.

   1894, Calvin Thomas, “The Teacher's Outfit in German”, in The School Review, volume 2, number 7, page 406

   1 more example

   In the run-up to his return to the White House next Monday, Mr. Trump has rattled the world, and America’s neighborhood in particular, with a list of objectives – buying Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, making Canada the 51st state – that treat friendly nations as weak interlocutors and impediments to be subdued.

   2025 January 14, Howard LaFranchi, “In Biden-Trump handoff, a foreign policy shift for a changed world?”, in The Christian Science Monitor

   Synonyms: converser, conversant, conversationalist, partner, collocutor

2. A man in the middle of the line in a minstrel show who questions the endmen and acts as leader.

   The "interlocutor" greeted the audience and engaged in comical repartee with the "end men," named Tambo and Bones.

   1991, Maureen Costonis, “Martha Graham's American Document: A Minstrel Show in Modern Dance Dress”, in American Music, volume 9, number 3, page 299

3. lawAn interlocutory judgement or sentence.

In a sentence

Explanations which continually remind one's interlocutor of one's ignorance are a great damper upon the easy flow of talk.

1894, Calvin Thomas, “The Teacher's Outfit in German”, in The School Review, volume 2, number 7, page 406

Where it comes from

1. Latininterloquor“speak between, issue an interlocutory decree”
2. Medieval Latininterlocūtor
3. Englishinterlocutor

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin interlocūtor, from the agent noun counterpart (via the suffix -tor) of Latin interloquor (“speak between, issue an interlocutory decree”), from inter- + loquor (“speak”).