noun
dialogue
Conversation between people or the spoken exchanges in a work of fiction.
Where it comes from
Dialogue ordinarily means conversation between people or the spoken exchanges in a work of fiction. Dialogue came through French and Latin from Greek dialogos, related to dialegesthai, to converse. Its elements are dia-, across or through, and legein, to speak; dia- is not the prefix di-, two. Because dialogues often feature two speakers, people sometimes reinterpret the opening as meaning two.
How the meaning developed
The word has historically allowed conversation among two or more people.
Sources
- Dialogue Definition & Meaning
- Dialogue: Etymology, Origin & Meaning
- Conceptual and Terminological Preliminaries: Dialogue, Dialogism, Dialogicality
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-10-05. Report a correction.