Interlocutor

WORD OF THE DAY

interlocutor / noun / in-ter-LAH-kyuh-ter

Definition
1: one who takes part in dialogue or conversation
2: a man in the middle of the line in a minstrel show who questions the end men and acts as leader

Example
“The Turing Test is a test of intelligence, sentience, consciousness and self-awareness. A machine passes the Turing Test if it can convince a human interlocutor that it is sentient.”
— Leon Gordon, Forbes, 11 July 2022

Most days, Milley would also call the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who was hardly a usual interlocutor for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
— Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
It may not necessarily be grandiloquence to use the word interlocutor in casual speech, but if your interlocutors—that is, the people with whom you are speaking—are using it, your conversation is likely a formal one.
Interlocutor is one of many English words that comes from the Latin verb loqui, “to speak,” including loquacious (“talkative”), eloquent (“capable of fluent or vivid speech”), and grandiloquence (“extravagant or pompous speech”).
In interlocutor, loqui was joined to inter- forming a Latin word meaning “to speak between” or “to issue an interlocutory decree.”
An interlocutory decree is a judicial decision that isn’t final, or that deals with a point other than the principal subject matter of the dispute.