FLUENCY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fluency mean? 

• FLUENCY (noun)
  The noun FLUENCY has 3 senses:

1. powerful and effective language

2. skillfulness in speaking or writing

3. the quality of being facile in speech and writing

  Familiarity information: FLUENCY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FLUENCY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Powerful and effective language

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

eloquence; fluency; smoothness

Context example:

his oily smoothness concealed his guilt from the police

Hypernyms ("fluency" is a kind of...):

expressive style; style (a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period)

Derivation:

fluent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Skillfulness in speaking or writing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("fluency" is a kind of...):

skillfulness (the state of being cognitively skillful)

Antonym:

disfluency (lack of skillfulness in speaking or writing)

Derivation:

fluent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being facile in speech and writing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

articulateness; fluency; volubility

Hypernyms ("fluency" is a kind of...):

communicativeness (the trait of being communicative)

Derivation:

fluent (expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively)

 Context examples 

He could immediately say with easy fluency, “I am sorry you are going; but as to our play, that is all over—entirely at an end” (looking significantly at his father).

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A 25-item screening test for dementia that provides quantitative assessment on attention, concentration, orientation, short-term memory, long-term memory, language abilities, visual construction, list-generating fluency, abstraction, and judgment.

(Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument, NCI Thesaurus)

She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He talked with fluency and spirit—and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The deficits range from almost complete muteness to a reduction in the fluency and rate of speech.

(Broca's Aphasia, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)