Dialog

How to spell dialog

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce dialog

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dialog mean?

1. nounA conversation or exchange of ideas between two or more people, especially as written in a play, film, or novel.
2. nounA small window on a screen that prompts the user for input or a decision.

Dialog in a sentence

• The screenwriter polished every line of dialog before the read-through.

• A dialog box appeared asking whether to save the changes.

• The two governments resumed dialog after months of silence.

• The print dialog lets you choose the page range and number of copies.

Where does dialog come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek dialogos, a noun built from the verb dialegesthai, meaning 'to converse' or 'to talk through with another'. That verb combined dia, meaning 'across' or 'between', with legein, meaning 'to speak', so the literal sense was speech passing back and forth between people. It entered English in the 1200s through Old French dialoge and Latin dialogus, originally describing a written conversation, especially the philosophical exchanges of writers like Plato. The same logos root that gives us the second half of this word also underlies 'logic', 'monologue', and the '-ology' that ends so many fields of study. The clipped spelling 'dialog', without the silent French 'ue', became established in American usage and is now especially common in computing, where a 'dialog box' invites a brief exchange between user and machine.

How the word is built

• dia- (through, across, between)
• log (from Greek logos: word, speech)

British and American spelling

Dialog is the American spelling. British English spells it dialogue.