Diligence

How to spell diligence

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce diligence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does diligence mean?

1. nounSteady, careful, and conscientious effort applied to a task.

Diligence in a sentence

• Her diligence on the audit caught errors everyone else had missed.

• The contract rewards consistent diligence rather than occasional bursts of speed.

Where does diligence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin diligentia, which meant 'carefulness' or 'attentiveness'. That noun grew out of the verb diligere, meaning 'to value highly, to esteem, to take pains over', formed from dis- 'apart' and legere 'to choose or gather'; the literal sense was something like 'to single out for care'. English took the word in the 1300s through Old French, where diligence already carried the idea of conscientious, painstaking effort. A nice surprise lies in the family tree: the same legere root that means 'to choose' also gives us 'select', 'elect', and even 'lecture'. The trap in spelling is the run of unstressed vowels, the -gence ending sounding like a soft 'jence', so writers must remember the central i and the -ence rather than -ance.

How the word is built

• dilig- (from Latin diligere: to value, take care over)
• -ence (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)