Definition of ELOQUENT

Did You Know?

Since "eloquent" can have to do with speaking, it makes sense that it comes from the Latin verb loqui, which means "to speak." "Loqui" is the parent of many "talkative" offspring in English. "Loquacious," which means "given to fluent or excessive talk," also arose from "loqui." Another "loqui" relative is "circumlocution," a word that means someone is talking around a subject to avoid making a direct statement (circum- means "around"). And a "ventriloquist" is someone who makes his or her voice sound like it’s coming from another source.

Examples of eloquent in a Sentence

He [H. L. Mencken] relished the vagaries of vernacular speech and paid eloquent homage to them in The American Language. — Jackson Lears, New Republic, 27 Jan. 2003 Samuel Johnson is palmed off in classrooms as a harmless drudge of a lexicographer, yet open the Dictionary anywhere and find precision and eloquent plainness. — Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination, (1954) 1981 There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more eloquent than the applause. — Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886 His success serves as an eloquent reminder of the value of hard work. an eloquent writer and speaker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the founders of the women's rights movement

Recent Examples on the Web

But his Letters, like Nathaniela Ames’s apostrophe to generations unborn, is eloquent testimony to the emergence of an American ethos. — Thomas Wendel, National Review, "The Beginning of a Nation," 4 July 2019 So long, Bob Ley — the eloquent ESPN pioneer who earlier this week announced his retirement after 40 years at the four-letter network. — Mike Bianchi, orlandosentinel.com, "Magic absolutely, positively, definitely, doubtlessly must bring back Vooch! | Commentary," 28 June 2019 Oddly elegant and brusquely eloquent, the work evokes perpetual cycles of construction and destruction. — Christopher Knight, latimes.com, "Review: In ‘COLA 2019,’ the city of L.A. gives its artists a place to sound off," 18 June 2019 Kate’s message for the Hospice Week Campaign comes almost a week after the royal stepped back into the spotlight upon making a rare and eloquent speech during a solo outing at a gala dinner for Addiction Awareness Week. — PEOPLE.com, "Kate Middleton Supports Children’s Hospice Week with Personal Message: 'Create Memories That Last'," 17 June 2019 Fear not Franklin Roosevelt’s beautiful and eloquent words coming out of the vulgar and crass mouth of Donald Trump has got to cut through you like a knife. — Chicago Tribune, Lake County News-Sun, "Talk of the County: Hearing FDR's words coming out of Trump's 'vulgar and crass mouth' cut like a knife," 10 June 2019 What distinguished Voltaire from other Europeans was not his assumptions about the superiority of their stock but his eloquent opposition to slavery and colonialism. — Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Review of Books, "Dialectics of Enlightenment," 9 May 2019 Big Technicolor gestures registered with a punch, the strings conjured up a warm, suave texture, and there were piercingly eloquent solo turns by (among others) oboist Eugene Izotov and trumpeter Mark Inouye. — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, "S.F. Symphony follows Strauss over a mountain," 13 Apr. 2018 The sense of place this creates around the works is as eloquent as the artworks themselves in convincing us to encounter the island’s culture on its own terms. — Lee Lawrence, WSJ, "‘The Jeweled Isle: Art From Sri Lanka’ Review: Reclaiming a Country’s Creative History," 1 Jan. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'eloquent.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for eloquent

Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin ēloquent-, ēloquens "capable of speech, expressing oneself fluently," from present participle of ēloquī "to utter, put into words," from ē- e- entry 1 + loquī "to talk, speak," probably going back to dialectal Indo-European *tlok^w- "talk," whence also Old Irish ad-tluichethar "(s/he) gives thanks" (originally with buide "thanks" as object, as in atluchedar buidi do Día "he thanks God"), do-tluichethar "(s/he) desires, beseeches, asks," Old Church Slavic tlŭk "interpreter" (from *tl̥k^w-o-)