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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

dic·tion       (dĭk'shən)  Pronunciation Key  n.   Choice and use of words in speech or writing. Degree of clarity and distinctness of pronunciation in speech or singing; enunciation. [Middle English diccion, a saying, word, from Old French, from Latin dictiō, dictiōn-, rhetorical delivery, from dictus, past participle of dīcere, to say, speak; see deik- in Indo-European roots.] dic'tion·al adj., dic'tion·al·ly adv.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
diction 

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

diction
noun
1.	the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience [syn: enunciation]
2.	the manner in which something is expressed in words; "use concise military verbiage"- G.S.Patton [syn: wording]

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
diction

The choice of words. Diction is effective when words are appropriate to an audience. A man might refer to his car as his “wheels” in casual conversation with a friend, but if he were writing an essay for a group of economists, he would write, “People base their decision to buy an automobile on the following considerations,” not “People base their decision to buy wheels on the following considerations.”

[Chapter:] Conventions of Written English

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Diction

Ab"di*cate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Abdicated; p. pr. & vb. n. Abdicating.] [L. abdicatus, p. p. of abdicare; ab + dicare to proclaim, akin to dicere to say. See Diction.]

1. To surrender or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity; as, to abdicate the throne, the crown, the papacy.

Note: The word abdicate was held to mean, in the case of James II., to abandon without a formal surrender.

The cross-bearers abdicated their service. --Gibbon.

2. To renounce; to relinquish; -- said of authority, a trust, duty, right, etc.

He abdicates all right to be his own governor. --Burke.

The understanding abdicates its functions. --Froude.

3. To reject; to cast off. [Obs.] --Bp. Hall.

4. (Civil Law) To disclaim and expel from the family, as a father his child; to disown; to disinherit.

Syn: To give up; quit; vacate; relinquish; forsake; abandon; resign; renounce; desert.

Usage: To Abdicate, Resign. Abdicate commonly expresses the act of a monarch in voluntary and formally yielding up sovereign authority; as, to abdicate the government. Resign is applied to the act of any person, high or low, who gives back an office or trust into the hands of him who conferred it. Thus, a minister resigns, a military officer resigns, a clerk resigns. The expression, "The king resigned his crown," sometimes occurs in our later literature, implying that he held it from his people. -- There are other senses of resign which are not here brought into view.

On-line Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

diction

diction: in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary