DIALOGUE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dialogue mean? 

• DIALOGUE (noun)
  The noun DIALOGUE has 4 senses:

1. a conversation between two persons

2. the lines spoken by characters in drama or fiction

3. a literary composition in the form of a conversation between two people

4. a discussion intended to produce an agreement

  Familiarity information: DIALOGUE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIALOGUE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A conversation between two persons

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

dialog; dialogue; duologue

Hypernyms ("dialogue" is a kind of...):

talk; talking (an exchange of ideas via conversation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The lines spoken by characters in drama or fiction

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

dialog; dialogue

Hypernyms ("dialogue" is a kind of...):

book; playscript; script (a written version of a play or other dramatic composition; used in preparing for a performance)

Meronyms (parts of "dialogue"):

actor's line; speech; words (words making up the dialogue of a play)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dialogue"):

duologue (a part of the script in which the speaking roles are limited to two actors)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A literary composition in the form of a conversation between two people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

dialog; dialogue

Context example:

he has read Plato's Dialogues in the original Greek

Hypernyms ("dialogue" is a kind of...):

literary composition; literary work (imaginative or creative writing)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A discussion intended to produce an agreement

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

dialogue; negotiation; talks

Context example:

talks between Israelis and Palestinians

Hypernyms ("dialogue" is a kind of...):

discussion; give-and-take; word (an exchange of views on some topic)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dialogue"):

parley (a negotiation between enemies)

diplomacy; diplomatic negotiations (negotiation between nations)

bargaining (the negotiation of the terms of a transaction or agreement)

collective bargaining (negotiation between an employer and trade union)

horse trading (negotiation accompanied by mutual concessions and shrewd bargaining)

mediation (a negotiation to resolve differences that is conducted by some impartial party)

 Context examples 

During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Because the association neocortex is thought to be a storage location for memories, the researchers theorized that this neural dialogue could help the brain retain information.

(Study shows how memories ripple through the brain, National Institutes of Health)

Now, the experts from this Donostia-based research centre have gone a step further and simultaneously analysed the complex neuronal activity of two strangers who hold a dialogue for the first time.

(Our Brains Synchronize during A Conversation, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

UNSW Sydney scientist and study first author Associate Professor Thomas Whitford says it has long been thought that these auditory-verbal hallucinations arise from abnormalities in inner speech — our silent internal dialogue.

(Talking to Ourselves And Voices in Our Heads, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A silence of several minutes succeeded their first short dialogue; it was broken by Thorpe's saying very abruptly, “Old Allen is as rich as a Jew—is not he?”

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Colonel Ross leaned back with his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes, while I listened with interest to the dialogue of the two detectives.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)