ELOQUENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Eloquence

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/ˈɛləkwəns/ Listen

noun

Eloquence n.

Fluent, forcible, elegant, and persuasive speech in public; the power of expressing strong emotions in striking and appropriate language either spoken or written, thereby producing conviction or persuasion. "Eloquence is speaking out... out of the abundance of the heart."

Fig.: Whatever produces the effect of moving and persuasive speech. "Silence that spoke and eloquence of eyes." "The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence."

That which is eloquently uttered or written. "O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast."

Synonyms: Oratory; rhetoric.

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Etymology of 'Eloquence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Eloquence" Quotes from Famous Books

... though all fables and profanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato, and the whole herd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement and convince them that the authors are men of learning, erudition, and eloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy Scriptures!—anyone would say they are St. Thomases or other doctors of the Church, observing as they do a decorum so ingenious that in one sentence they describe a distracted lover and in the next deliver ...

— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... again and again. Sometimes he blushed—not with shame, but with the embarrassment of a girl—at the fervid eloquence. And then he would feel a twinge of envy for this Eugene Brassfield who could be to such ...

— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... the Race, he cannot find a better Man, or more certain Friend: Nor amongst all his Ancestors, match your greater Soul, and Magnificence of Mind. He will behold in one English Subject, a Spirit as illustrious, a Heart as fearless, a Wit and Eloquence as excellent, as Rome it self cou'd produce. Its Senate scarce boasted of a better States-man, nor Augustus of a more faithful Subject; as your Imprisonment and Sufferings, through all the Course of our ...

— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... that I am not to attempt any golden-mouthed eloquence, thereby making the lamentable exhibit of a most stupendous ...

— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... made matter for young dreams, like the loves of Hermia and Lysander'; to Ben Jonson's mask of Pleasure reconciled to Virtue (1619), in which Comus is "the god of cheer, or the Belly"; and to the Comus of Erycius Puteanus (Henri du Puy), Professor of Eloquence at Louvain. It is true that Fletcher's pastoral was being acted in London about the time Milton was writing his Comus, that the poem by the Dutch Professor was republished at Oxford in 1634, and that resemblances are evident ...

— Milton's Comus • John Milton

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