Search Result for "diligence": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (3)

1. conscientiousness in paying proper attention to a task; giving the degree of care required in a given situation;

2. persevering determination to perform a task;
- Example: "his diligence won him quick promotions"
- Example: "frugality and industry are still regarded as virtues"
[syn: diligence, industriousness, industry]

3. a diligent effort;
- Example: "it is a job requiring serious application"
[syn: application, diligence]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Diligence \Di`li*gence"\, n. [F.] A four-wheeled public stagecoach, used in France. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Diligence \Dil"i*gence\, n. [F. diligence, L. diligentia.] 1. The quality of being diligent; carefulness; careful attention; -- the opposite of negligence. [1913 Webster] 2. Interested and persevering application; devoted and painstaking effort to accomplish what is undertaken; assiduity in service. [1913 Webster] That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. --Shak. [1913 Webster] 3. (Scots Law) Process by which persons, lands, or effects are seized for debt; process for enforcing the attendance of witnesses or the production of writings. [1913 Webster] To do one's diligence, give diligence, use diligence, to exert one's self; to make interested and earnest endeavor. [1913 Webster] And each of them doth all his diligence To do unto the fest['e] reverence. --Chaucer. Syn: Attention; industry; assiduity; sedulousness; earnestness; constancy; heed; heedfulness; care; caution. -- Diligence, Industry. Industry has the wider sense of the two, implying an habitual devotion to labor for some valuable end, as knowledge, property, etc. Diligence denotes earnest application to some specific object or pursuit, which more or less directly has a strong hold on one's interests or feelings. A man may be diligent for a time, or in seeking some favorite end, without meriting the title of industrious. Such was the case with Fox, while Burke was eminent not only for diligence, but industry; he was always at work, and always looking out for some new field of mental effort. [1913 Webster] The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to. --Shak. [1913 Webster] Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical writer ascribe to himself. --Gibbon. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

diligence n 1: conscientiousness in paying proper attention to a task; giving the degree of care required in a given situation 2: persevering determination to perform a task; "his diligence won him quick promotions"; "frugality and industry are still regarded as virtues" [syn: diligence, industriousness, industry] 3: a diligent effort; "it is a job requiring serious application" [syn: application, diligence]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

92 Moby Thesaurus words for "diligence": advertence, advertency, alertness, application, ardor, assiduity, assiduousness, attention, attention span, attentiveness, awareness, bookishness, bulldog tenacity, care, concentration, consciousness, consideration, constancy, dogged perseverance, doggedness, ear, earnestness, endurance, energeticalness, energy, engrossment, fervor, fidelity, heed, heedfulness, indefatigability, industriousness, industry, insistence, insistency, intentiveness, intentness, laboriousness, loyalty, mindfulness, note, notice, observance, observation, obstinacy, pains, painstaking, painstakingness, patience, patience of Job, permanence, perseverance, persistence, persistency, pertinaciousness, pertinacity, plodding, plugging, preoccupation, regard, regardfulness, relentlessness, remark, resolution, respect, scholarliness, scholarship, sedulity, sedulousness, single-mindedness, singleness of purpose, slogging, stability, stamina, staying power, steadfastness, steadiness, stick-to-itiveness, strenuousness, stubbornness, studiousness, tenaciousness, tenacity, thoroughgoingness, thoroughness, thought, tirelessness, unremittingness, unsparingness, unswerving attention, vehemence, zealousness
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

DILIGENCE. In Scotland, there are certain forms of law, whereby a creditor endeavors to make good his payment, either by affecting the person of his debtor, or by securing the subjects belonging to him from alienation, or by carrying the property of these subjects to himself. They are either real or personal. 2. Real diligence is that which is proper to heritable or real rights,. and of this kind there are two sorts: 1. Inhibitions. 2. Adjudication, which the law has substituted in the place of apprising. 3. Personal diligence is that by which the person of the debtor may be secured, or his personal estate affected. Ersk. Pr. L. Scotl. B. 2, t. 11, s. 1.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

DILIGENCE, contracts. The doing things in proper time. 2. It may be divided into three degrees, namely: ordinary diligence, extraordinary diligence, and slight diligence. It is the reverse of negligence. (q.v.) Under that article is shown what degree of negligence, or want of diligence, will make a party to a contract responsible to the other. Vide Story, Bailm. Index h.t.; Ayl. Pand. 113 1 Miles, Rep. 40.