All 6 Uses of
diligent
in
Gulliver's Travels
- Having thus, in obedience to your majesty's commands, diligently searched all his pockets, we observed a girdle about his waist made of the hide of some prodigious animal, from which, on the left side, hung a sword of the length of five men; and on the right, a bag or pouch divided into two cells, each cell capable of holding three of your majesty's subjects.†
Chpt 1diligently = with hard work and care
- I would gladly have taken a dozen of the natives, but this was a thing the emperor would by no means permit; and, besides a diligent search into my pockets, his majesty engaged my honour "not to carry away any of his subjects, although with their own consent and desire."†
Chpt 1diligent = hard work and care
- This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel.†
Chpt 3diligently = with hard work and care
- The beast and I were brought close together, and by our countenances diligently compared both by master and servant, who thereupon repeated several times the word Yahoo.†
Chpt 4
- He took up all my clothes in his pastern, one piece after another, and examined them diligently; he then stroked my body very gently, and looked round me several times; after which, he said, it was plain I must be a perfect Yahoo; but that I differed very much from the rest of my species in the softness, whiteness, and smoothness of my skin; my want of hair in several parts of my body; the shape and shortness of my claws behind and before; and my affectation of walking continually on my two hinder feet.†
Chpt 4
- he desired "I would go on with my utmost diligence to learn their language,"
Chpt 4 *diligence = hard work and care
Definitions:
-
(1)
(diligent as in: she is diligent) working carefully and steadily with effort and attention to detail
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More specifically in law, diligence or due diligence refers to the care or attention expected by the law in doing something such as fulfilling the terms of a contract.
More rarely, but sometimes seen in classic literature, a diligence is a public stagecoach.