Dictions

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of expressing thoughts, ideas, or emotions through spoken or written words
2. the style of speech or writing, especially in terms of clarity and effectiveness
3. the choice and use of words in speaking or writing to convey specific meanings and tones

Etymology: The plural "dictions" simply reflects the noun "diction" in its sense of distinct styles or choices of wording, so the story belongs to "diction" itself. That noun descends from Latin "dictiō", a saying or speaking, built from "dīcō", "to say" or "to talk", with the suffix "-tiō" forming a noun of action. The Latin word was taken into English in its earliest sense of something said, a word or phrase, a meaning now obsolete in Modern English. It reached English from Latin directly or through Old French "dicïon", and Late Middle English records it in that sense. The sense English uses today, the choice and use of words, appears to have grown out of other meanings the Latin word carried. Latin dictionaries record uses for "dictiō" as a mode of expression and as the art of speaking, which fit the modern idea of wording a thing well. Over time the emphasis moved from the act of saying to the manner of saying, so that a writer's diction now means the particular vocabulary and phrasing that give a text its character.

Synonyms: enunciations, pronunciations, articulations, expressions, verbalizations

Antonyms: muteness, silence, inarticulateness, taciturnity, reticence