COLLOQUIUM. A general averment in an action for slander connecting the whole publication with the previous statement. 1 Stark. SI. 431; Heard, Lib. & Sl. 228 ; or stating that the whole publication applies to the plaintiff, and to the extrinsic matters alleged in his declaration. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 417.
An averment that the words were spoken "Of or concerning" the plaintiff, where the words are actionable in themselves. 6 Term 162; Ellis v. Kimball, 16 Pick. (Mass.) 132 ; Cro. Jac. 674; or where the injurious mean ing which the plaintiff assigns to the words results from some extrinsic ,matter, or of and concerning, or with reference to, such matter ; Bloss v. Tobey, 2 Pick. (Mass.) 328 ; Carter v. Andrews, 16 Pick. (Mass.)' 1; 11 M. & W. 287.
An averment that the words in question are spoken of or concerning some 'usage, report, or fact which gives to words other wise indifferent the peculiar defamatory meaning assigned to them. Shaw, C. J.,
Carter v. Andrews, 16 Pick; (Mass.) 6.
Whenever words have the sianderous meaning alleged, not by their own intrinsic force, but by rea son of the existence of some extraneous fact, this fact must be averred in a traversable form, which averment is called the inducement. There must then be a colloquium averring that the slanderous worde were spoken of or concerning this fact. Then the word "meaning," or innuendo, is used to connect the matters thus introduced by averments and collo quia with the particular words laid, showing their identity and drawing what is then the iegai infer ence from the whole declaration, that such was, un der the circumstances thus eet out, the meaning of the worde used. Per Shaw, C. J., Carter v. An drewe, 16 Pick. (Maas.) 6. By the Com. L. Proc. Act (1852) in Bngland the colloquium has been rendered unnecessary. Bee InNusigno ; Odger, Lib. & Si.