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. 2003Samuel 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) 1981There 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
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.
Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin Ä“loquent-, Ä“loquens "capable of speech, expressing oneself fluently," from present participle of Ä“loquÄ« "to utter, put into words," from Ä“-e- entry 1 + loquÄ« "to talk, speak," probably going back to dialectal Indo-European *tlokw- "talk," whence also Old Irish ad-tluichethar "(s/he) gives thanks" (originally with buide "thanks" as object, as in atluchedar buidi do DÃa "he thanks God"), do-tluichethar "(s/he) desires, beseeches, asks," Old Church Slavic tlÅk "interpreter" (from *tlÌ¥kw-o-)