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ELOQUENCE
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Powerful and effective language
Example:
his oily smoothness concealed his guilt from the police
Synonyms:
eloquence; fluency; smoothness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("eloquence" is a kind of...):
expressive style; style (a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period)
Derivation:
eloquent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively)
Context examples:
When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased so much the more.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with passionate violence—a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still referring her to the letter of comfort.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Nobody ever knew what went on in the parlor that afternoon, but a great deal of talking was done, and quiet Mr. Brooke astonished his friends by the eloquence and spirit with which he pleaded his suit, told his plans, and persuaded them to arrange everything just as he wanted it.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now I was poor; how I never could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how I had begun to be practical, and look into the future; how a crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
She began, however, seriously to turn her thoughts towards its accomplishment, and had already mentioned their wishes to their kind hostess, who resisted them with all the eloquence of her good-will, when a plan was suggested, which, though detaining them from home yet a few weeks longer, appeared to Elinor altogether much more eligible than any other.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth—an eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
