eloquent means fluently persuasive and articulate. It carries an Arena rating of 1799, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, eloquent ranks #88 of 42,789 for Qualifying, #1,004 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words, #1,281 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,810 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
eloquent is pronounced /ˈɛl.əˌkwənt/.
Why “eloquent” is a great word
Fluent, vivid, and persuasive in speech or expression. From Old French *eloquent*, from Latin *eloquens* ('speaking out, eloquent'), present participle of *eloqui* ('to speak out'), from *e-* ('out') + *loqui* ('to speak'). Unlike 'articulate,' which delivers clarity without necessarily stirring the blood, or 'verbose,' which drowns meaning in a surplus of syllables, eloquent speech is a potent economy—the precisely weighted phrase that lands with the force of a truth, the image that crystallizes a complex feeling, or the rhythm that turns an argument into a kind of music. It is the cool hand on the fevered brow of a crowd, the eulogist who summons the dead into sudden, breathing presence, or the simple line of poetry that, once heard, seems to have always existed in the mind—proof that language, when rightly wielded, does not merely convey meaning, but becomes it.
Etymology
From Old French eloquent, from Latin eloquens (“speaking, having the faculty of speech, eloquent”), present participle of eloquor (“to speak out”), from e (“out”) + loquor (“to speak”).
adj
- Fluently persuasive and articulate.e.g.“an eloquent writer”
- Effective in expressing meaning by speech.e.g.“an eloquent article”
- Relating to areas in the brain that serve an identifiable neurological function, in which injury leads to focal deficits or disability.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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