diligent
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About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.dil·i·gent
adjective \ˈdi-lə-jənt\Definition of DILIGENT
: characterized by steady, earnest, and energetic effort : painstaking <a diligent worker>
— dil·i·gent·ly adverb
See Examples of DILIGENT
- <a student who has been unceasingly diligent in pursuit of a degree in mathematics>
- The American intelligence community's single greatest failing is its lack of good “humint”—human intelligence, the dirty, diligent, shoe-leather penetration of terror networks. —Johanna McGeary, Time, 15 Oct. 2001
- Like any diligent foreign correspondent, he attends the briefings and collects face time with the officials, but he knows it's the citizens (the upstanding as well as the jailers, the whores, the black marketeers and the smugglers) who tell the truth … —Rolling Stone, 19 Sept. 1996
- He was a fourth-year drama student at UCLA and diligent about such valuable actorly exercises as eavesdropping, spying, and telling complicated lies to fellow passengers on airplanes. —Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories, 1991
- In spite of diligent work as editor, hack writer, sea captain, and assorted other trades, he wound up poor. —Monroe K. Spears, American Ambitions, 1987
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Origin of DILIGENT
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin diligent-, diligens, from present participle of diligere to esteem, love, from di- (from dis- apart) + legere to select — more at legend
First Known Use: 14th century
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