interlocutor

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The Word of the Day for April 20 is: 

interlocutor   \in-ter-LAH-kyuh-ter\   noun 
    *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 sentence:
     Steve's aggressive insistence on the correctness of his own opinions 
frequently made his interlocutors uncomfortable.

Did you know?
     "Interlocutor" derives from the Latin "interloqui," meaning "to speak 
between" or "to issue an interlocutory decree." (An interlocutory decree is a 
court judgment that comes in the middle of a case and is not decisive.) 
"Interloqui," in turn, ultimately comes from the words "inter-," "between," and 
"loqui," "to speak." Some other words that English borrowed from "loqui" are 
"loquacious" ("talkative"), "circumlocution" (essentially, "talking around a 
subject"), "ventriloquism" ("talking in such a way that one's voice seems to 
come from someone or something else"), "eloquent" ("capable of fluent or vivid 
speech"), and "grandiloquence" ("extravagant or pompous speech").

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.