colonial

From colony + -al.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈləʊ.ni.əl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kəˈloʊ.njəl/, /kəˈloʊ.ni.əl/
• Rhymes: -əʊniəl

colonial (comparative more colonial, superlative most colonial)

1. Of or pertaining to a colony.
2. Of or pertaining to a period when a country or territory was a colony.
   • 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 407, number 8839, archived from the original on 25 November 2020, page 52:

     From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.

   • 2024 May 8, Dhruv Tikekar, “How India got stuck in its own unusual time zone”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     India’s half-hour zone dates back to colonial rule of India and the era when ever-faster steamships and trains were shrinking the world.

3. Of or pertaining to the ideals of colonialism.
4. (US) Of or relating to the original Thirteen Colonies of the USA.
5. (US) Of or relating to the style of architecture prevalent at about the time of the Revolution.
6. (biology) Tending to form colonies (especially of cells).

colonial (plural colonials)

1. A person from a country that is or was controlled by another.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 192:

     None of them are, so to speak, idle men. Many of them are emigrants, not of the soil born and bred colonials.

   • 2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 150:

     The rest of us had tea and finger sandwiches with members of the royal household, which was very elegant but hard on some of us ill-schooled colonials.

2. (US) A house that is built in a style reminiscent of the period of the colonization of New England.
3. A coin or postage stamp issued by a colony.
   • 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:

     This simple soul, who possesses a talent not inferior to that of Cavino at his best, has for many years turned his hand to the not unprofitable occupation of forging rare Greek and Roman coins. As a collector and student of certain Greek colonials and a specialist in forgeries I have been familiar with Stelli's workmanship for years.

• colonization

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al

colonial m or f (masculine and feminine plural colonials)

1. colonial

• colonialisme
• colonialista

• colònia

• “colonial”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “colonial”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026
• “colonial” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• Alcover, Antoni Maria; Moll, Francesc de Borja (1963), “colonial”, in Diccionari català-valencià-balear (in Catalan)

From colonie +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.lɔ.njal/

• Audio:

  (file)

colonial (feminine coloniale, masculine plural coloniaux, feminine plural coloniales)

1. colonial

• colonialisme
• colonialiste

• → German: kolonial
• → Romanian: colonial
• → Turkish: kolonyal

colonial m (plural coloniaux, feminine coloniale)

1. a colonial, a resident of a colony

   Near-synonym: colon

2. a soldier dispatched to a colony

• “colonial”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

From colónia / colônia (“colony”) +‎ -al (“of or relating to”).

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: co‧lo‧ni‧al

colonial m or f (plural coloniais)

1. (geopolitics) colonial (relating to colonies: regions ruled by another country)

   Governo colonial.

   Colonial government.

2. (geopolitics) colonial; colonialistic (relating to colonialism)

   Synonym: colonialista

   Expansão colonial.

   Colonial expansion.

3. (chiefly art) colonial (relating to the period when a country was a colony)

   Arquitetura colonial.

   Colonial architecture.

4. (Brazil) relating to the culture of rural immigrant settlements

   Queijo colonial.

   [Type of cheese made by German immigrants].

• colonialismo
• colonialista

• coloniano
• colono

• “colonial”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “colonial”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Borrowed from French colonial. Equivalent to colonie +‎ -al.

colonial m or n (feminine singular colonială, masculine plural coloniali, feminine/neuter plural coloniale)

1. colonial

From colonia +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): /koloˈnjal/ [ko.loˈnjal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: co‧lo‧nial

colonial m or f (masculine and feminine plural coloniales)

1. colonial

• “colonial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025