locution
(ləʊˈkjuːʃən)
Also 6–7 loquution.
[ad. L. locūtiōn-em (loquū-), n. of action f. loquī to speak. Cf. F. locution (14–15th c.).]
† 1. The act of speaking, utterance. Obs.
| c 1485 Digby Myst. (1882) ii. 563 Of the hartes habundans the tunge makyth locucion. c 1500 Melusine 20, I wil not make grett locucion or talking. 1597 A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 23/1 A whole lippe is necessarye to the loquution and speeche. 1647 Trapp Comm. Acts xviii. 24 An eloquent man... It imports, 1 skill in the words..; 2 good locution. 1666 J. Smith Old Age (ed. 2) 140 Dentition and Locution are for the most part Contemporaries. 1767 Lewis Statius' Thebaid xii. 1180 Should gentle Phœbus fortify my Lungs, And give Locution from a hundred Tongues. |
2. Speech as the expression of thought; discourse; also, style of discourse, expression. Now rare or Obs.
| 1519 W. Horman Vulg. 98 b, Let no man call hym selfe a diuyne: that knoweth nat the figuris of construction and locucion: and specially allygoris [etc.]. a 1547 Bale Image both Ch. xv. (1550) ij, Under the shadowe of fygurate locution. 1603 H. Crosse Vertues Commw. (1878) 116 To carrie the minde into sinfull thoughts, with vncleane locution, and vnchaste behauiour. 1606 Marston Sophonisba i. ii, I hate these figures in locution, These about phrases forc'd by ceremonie. 1726 Ayliffe Parergon 347 A Libel may be obscure in point of Diction or Locution. 1846 Grote Greece i. xxi. II. 196 The vein of Homeric feeling and the general style of locution..would be maintained. 1851 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 49 Their modes of speech accustomed every ear to their locution. 1852 Ferrier Grk. Philos. (1866) I. Lett. to De Quincey 483 In barbarous locution, ‘the knowable alone is the ignorable’. |
3. A form of expression or phraseology; a phrase, expression.
| 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) I. 77 That somme men seyde Paradise to atteyn to the cercle of the moone, Alexander seythe that not to be trawthe, but after a locucion iperbolicalle. 1547 Hooper Answ. Bp. Winchester D i b, Here ys a uery plain trope and figuratiue loquucion. 1555 Bradford in Foxe A. & M. (1583) II. 1616/2 Which is an hyperbolicall loquution. 1650 Charleton Paradoxes 133, I abhorre metaphoricall locutions in serious and abstruse subjects. 1654 Jer. Taylor Real Pres. 140 If Testament in one place be taken for the instrument of his Testament, it is a tropical loquution. 1816 Bentham Chrestom. 146 Analysis and synthesis..are locutions which are but too frequently to be found employed. 1824 Landor Imag. Conv., Johnson & Tooke Wks. 1853 I. 196/1, I cannot but think that so irregular a locution was at first occasioned by abbreviation in manuscripts. 1847 Grote Greece ii. ix. III. 33 It was essential to the security of the despot that..he should strike off the overtopping ears of corn in the field (to use the Greek locution). 1860 Illustr. Lond. News 14 July 35/3 A permanent Philological Board to watch over the introduction of new words and locutions. 1879 Howells L. Aroostook xxvii. 319 The vigorous and imaginative locutions of the Pike language. |