Diligence, n.
Etymology: [F. diligence, L. diligentia.]
1. The quality of being diligent; carefulness; careful attention; -- the opposite of negligence.
2. Interested and persevering application; devoted and painstaking effort to accomplish what is undertaken; assiduity in service. That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Shak.
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. To do one's diligence, give diligence, use diligence, to exert one's self; to make interested and earnest endeavor. And each of them doth all his diligence To do unto the festé reverence. Chaucer.
1 more senses
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. The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to. Shak. Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical writer ascribe to himself. Gibbon.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Diligence, n.
A four-wheeled public stagecoach, used in France.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for diligence; he lists it under industry.
Where he writes about it:
In the use of the nouns, we speak of plodding industry, but not of plodding diligence. — from industrious
Diligence (L. diligo, love, choose) invests more effort and exertion, with love of the work or deep interest in its accomplishment; application (L. ad, to, and plico, fold) bends to its work and concentrates all one's powers upon it with utmost intensity; hence, application can hardly be as unremitting as assiduity. — from industry
Industry is diligence applied to some avocation, business, or profession. — from industry