noun
definition
Choice and use of words, especially with regard to effective communication.
definition
The effectiveness and degree of clarity of word choice and expression.
Examples of diction in a Sentence
His perfect diction never failed to be commented on.
His speech and diction were plain, terse, forcible.
Clear diction, not a "posh voice", was what was wanted.
His diction is pure, his style correct, his versification smooth though monotonous.
Poetic diction describes the range of language used in poems.
Diction employed by the author seems to exaggerate and stretch the truth.
The Renaissance displayed itself in their effort to purify the form and diction of poetry.
His commanding presence, mastery of diction, and resonant voice made him an effective platform speaker.
These additions are identical in object and closely related in character and diction with the Psalms of Solomon.
The decision to use an archaic diction might be thought a central part of Spenser's particularly Protestant poetics.
The work of Kadlubek is more ornate in diction than that of Bogufal, and for a long time enjoyed great popularity.
There is a deterioration in the diction as well as in the music of poetry.
In spite of the incorrectness of his diction, he was gifted with a genuine eloquence, and well knew how to carry the populace with him.
This helps to improve diction, organize what they want to say and focus on the main points of interest.
In unity of style and in the high level of its dramatic diction, Die Jungfrau von Orleans is unsurpassed among Schiller's works.
The choir had very good diction, which enabled the audience to hear Nancy Bush's words clearly.
The best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity.
No alteration of a text, or emendation, is entitled to approval, unless in addition to providing the sense and diction required, it also presents a reading which the evidence furnished by the tradition shows might not improbably have been corrupted to what stands in the text.
Nevertheless, it is on a false interpretation of this challenge that the dogma of the incomparable excellence of the style and diction of the Koran is based.
The stories of the Middle Kingdom were in choice diction, large portions of them being rhetorical or poetical compositions attributed to the principal characters.
When therefore he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly, and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted.
Next come three eucharistic prayers, the language of which is clearly marked off from that of the rest of the book, and shows parallels with the diction of St John's Gospel.
The diction is full, even to excess, of meaning, point and emphasis.
That last one brings up the question of case and diction.
The year of her death (1380) was that of the birth of St Bernardino Albizzeschi (S Bernardino of Siena), a popular preacher whose sermons in the vulgar tongue are models of style and diction.
As far as the diction itself is concerned, the lyric outbursts of the chorus gave Schiller's genius an opportunity of which he was not slow to avail himself.
His hasidas are almost equal to his ghazels; for, while they rival those of Nef `i in brilliancy, they surpass them in beauty of diction, and are not so artificial and dependent on fantastic and farfetched conceits.
But a few years ago they used to compile laborious essays, in which the inspiration was drawn from Occidental text-books, and the alien character of the source was hidden under a veneer of Chinese aphorisms., To-day they write terse, succinct, closely-reasoned articles, seldom diffuse, often witty; and generally free from extravagance of thought or diction.
He seems to have been interested in the poetic diction of Milton and Thomson, and a few of his verses are remotely inspired by Shakespeare and Gray.
The earliest efforts of his art (the Eclogues) reproduce the cadences, the diction and the pastoral fancies of Theocritus; but even in these imitative poems of his youth Virgil shows a perfect mastery of his materials.
Samuel Usque, a Lisbon Jew, deserves a place to himself for his Consolagam as tribulagoes de Israel, where he exposes the persecutions endured by his countrymen in every age down to his time; the book takes the dialogue form, and its diction is elegant and pure.
He has passed far beyond the bald and meagre diction of the early chroniclers.
From the tendency to use a poetic diction in prose, which was so conspicuous a fault in the writers of the silver age, Livy is not wholly free.
His treatises, orations, and familiar letters, though remarkable for a prose style which is eminently characteristic of the man, are not distinguished by purity of diction.
Where a borough has not a separate court of quarter sessions, but has a separate commission of the peace, the justices of the county in which the borough is situate have a concurrent jurisJuris d - diction with the borough justices in all matters arising ti o n o within the borough.
Nor can we deny to the Yashts, in their depiction of the Zoroastrian angels and their presentment of the old sagas, a certain poetic feeling, at times, and a pleasant diction.
Clearness, cogency, masculine simplicity of diction, are conspicuous in the pamphlet, but true creative power told the Tale of a Tub.
His diffuseness and the antiquated character of his matter and diction, have, however, come to be regarded as difficulties in the way of study, and he is more renowned than read.
The Book of Enoch was written in the second and first centuries B.C. It was well known to many of the writers of the New Testament, and in many instances influenced their thought and diction.
In the New Testament the similarity of matter and diction is sufficiently strong to establish a close connexion, if not a literary dependence.
No other Rumanian translation approaches it in style and diction, although the authors, as they own, utilized the older translations, and for the New Testament and the Psalter they utilized Sylvestre's work.
And magnificent rhetorician though he was, his labour was given less to his diction than to the facts; his heart was less in the form than the matter.
All his works were written in the most elegant style and chaste diction; but apart from his share in the editing of the Historiens de la France, they were mostly in the form of separate articles on literary and historical subjects.
Influenced by Jonas Hallgrimsson with regard to language and poetic diction, but keeping unbroken the traditions of Icelandic medieval poetry maintained by Sigur5r Breic fjorc6 (1798-1846), is another school of poets, very unlike the first.
According to the custom of that age in Italy, it now became his duty to explain the language, and to illustrate the beauties of the principal Latin authors, Cicero and Virgil being considered the chief masters of moral science and of elegant diction.
Aeschines reproached the diction of Demosthenes with excess of, elaboration and adornment (7reptcpryia).
Its style is as easily recognized as that of Deutero-Isaiah, being as remarkable for its copious diction as for its depths of moral and religious feeling.
Of George Sand's style a foreigner can be but an imperfect judge, but French critics, from Sainte-Beuve, Nisard and Caro down to Jules Lemaitre and Faguet, have agreed to praise her spontaneity, her correctness of diction, her easy opulence - the lactea ubertas that Quintilian attributes to Livy.
It is sparing in the use of personal pronouns, and prefers impersonal and elliptical diction.
Calpurnius Siculus, written at the beginning of the reign of Nero, which are not without grace and facility of diction.