DILIGENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does diligence mean? 

• DILIGENCE (noun)
  The noun DILIGENCE has 3 senses:

1. conscientiousness in paying proper attention to a task; giving the degree of care required in a given situation

2. persevering determination to perform a task

3. a diligent effort

  Familiarity information: DILIGENCE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DILIGENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Conscientiousness in paying proper attention to a task; giving the degree of care required in a given situation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("diligence" is a kind of...):

conscientiousness; painstakingness (the trait of being painstaking and careful)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Persevering determination to perform a task

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

diligence; industriousness; industry

Context example:

frugality and industry are still regarded as virtues

Hypernyms ("diligence" is a kind of...):

determination; purpose (the quality of being determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "diligence"):

assiduity; assiduousness; concentration (great and constant diligence and attention)

sedulity; sedulousness (the quality of being constantly diligent and attentive)

studiousness (diligent study)

Derivation:

diligent (characterized by care and perseverance in carrying out tasks)

diligent (quietly and steadily persevering especially in detail or exactness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A diligent effort

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

application; diligence

Context example:

it is a job requiring serious application

Hypernyms ("diligence" is a kind of...):

effort; elbow grease; exertion; sweat; travail (use of physical or mental energy; hard work)

 Context examples 

There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quiet at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

No doubt, with due diligence, we can secure some other specimen.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In the meantime, he desired I would go on with my utmost diligence to learn their language, because he was more astonished at my capacity for speech and reason, than at the figure of my body, whether it were covered or not; adding, that he waited with some impatience to hear the wonders which I promised to tell him.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing yet.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She worked very diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence and her silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind; and about noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, that she might have no concern in another, and, as she deemed it, most unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was just proposing, desirous at once of having her time to herself, and of avoiding the sight of Mr. Rushworth.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I have not seen much of 'em. By the by; he laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; I have a letter for you.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This sentiment had been uttered so often in vain that Mrs. Allen had no particular reason to hope it would be followed with more advantage now; but we are told to despair of nothing we would attain, as unwearied diligence our point would gain; and the unwearied diligence with which she had every day wished for the same thing was at length to have its just reward, for hardly had she been seated ten minutes before a lady of about her own age, who was sitting by her, and had been looking at her attentively for several minutes, addressed her with great complaisance in these words: I think, madam, I cannot be mistaken; it is a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you, but is not your name Allen?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)