which reveals with great or impressive force one's thoughts, ideas, or feelings. The sense of eloquent that is not closely related to articulate is the one that makes it a synonym of expressive, significant, meaningful, pregnant, and sententious-words that, MW says "mean clearly conveying or manifesting a thought, idea, or feeling or a combination of these." With regard to eloquent in this sense, the dictionary offers this commentary: The sense of articulate that is not closely related to eloquent is the one that makes it a synonym of oral and vocal because, according to Merriam-Webster, they "can all mean uttered by voice or having to do with utterance." The dictionary says this about this sense of articulate:Īrticulate implies the use of distinct, intelligible language thus, speech is the uttering of articulate sounds articulate cries are those that are expressed in meaningful words rather than in meaningless sounds This helps explain why, when understood in their non-overlapping senses, the two words seem quite different, whereas, when viewed in their shared sense, they have a lot in common. Is this particular variance in usage a common thing among English speakers, or am I just weird?Īccording to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms (1984), both articulate (as an adjective) and eloquent belong to two distinct groups of synonyms-one group that the other word also appears in, and one group (each) that the other does not appear in. I suppose that one can also be eloquent but not truly articulate, but I feel this is very rare for having the ability to craft a sentence for a certain effect more-or-less requires a fairly strong grasp of the intended language.
So one can be articulate but not eloquent, in my opinion. Their words are proper and correct, but not necessarily the most flowing or "fun" to read or listen to.
However, when I use the adjective "articulate" I think of someone who simply has a strong understanding and usage of a language. Whether they do this consciously or unconsciously is not relevant for my usage. The individual puts effort into making their speaking more colorful or artistic. When I use the adjective "eloquent" I most often think of flowery, decorated, or crafted speaking. Is there an intended difference between the words "eloquent" and "articulate," or are they simply two synonymous adjectives?
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