diligence

plural diligences

1. countableuncountableSteady application; industry; careful work involving long-term effort.
2. countableuncountableThe qualities of a hard worker, including conscientiousness, determination, and perseverance.
3. countableuncountableCarefulness, in particular, the necessary care appropriate to a particular task or responsibility.

   1 more example

   He then proceeded to criticise the wording of the arbitration clause in the treaty. Who was to say what was "due diligence?' "Due diligence" itself meant nothing. What was "due diligence" as between man and man was not "due diligence" as between power and power. The rule was to be a rule of international law, and if there was one thing more clear than another in international law, it was this, that as between two countries, it is no excuse where an international obligation has been broken, for one country to say to another that its municipal law did not confer upon its executive sufficient power to enable it to fulfil its international duty. Suppose the United States, in applying this retrospective law, should say that the government of 1863 or 1864, were bound to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, the arming or equipment of any vessel of this kind, they might also say, "Do not tell us what the law of your country was. Do not tell us that you require clear evidence to be brought before you of the object for which the ship was intended before you could detain her. You have admitted that you were required to maintain "due diligence", and by that standard, and that standard alone, you must be judged." Here was a serious blot in these terms of arbitration. Why again was "due diligence" spoken of in the first rule but not in the second?

   1872, The American Law Review, volume VI, page 189

4. countablehistoricaluncountableA four-wheeled public stage-coach, widely used in France before the general establishment of the railways.

   Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.

   1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   1822 M.Reichard, An Itinerary Of France And Belgium The French diligence is a most curious and unique machine : it is a strange compound of the English stage waggon and coach; and it similarly possesses all the conveniences of each without their defects. It contains six, eight, or ten passengers inside, according to its size; and in front is what is called the cabriolet of the diligence for outside passengers, with leather covers, like the body of our one-horse chaises, to defend both the head and legs from the weather. The (Dutch) Diligence, or Post-Waggon. A Diligence, or, as it is usually called, a post-waggon, is established between the principal towns of Holland. The post-waggon is constructed so as to contain six or eight travellers. Each place has its number, and the name of each passenger is registered. When he pays his fare, he obtains a ticket, with a number which indicates where he is to sit. Here, too, except he be very careful, his trunks will be fastened in such an awkward and negligent manner, that they will be frequently cut to pieces by the shaking, or dropped, or stolen on the road. These waggons are covered with waxed cloth, but are not suspended on springs. They are low and narrow : the seat is not remarkably comfortable; and the passenger is in danger of being suffocated by the smoke of his companions, who, if they are Dutch, light their pipes the instant they enter the waggon.

   Being in a civilised country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon.

   1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC

   ON the same day that Kadour ben Saden rode south the diligence from the north brought Tarzan a letter from D’Arnot which had been forwarded from Sidi-bel-Abbes.

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Numa ‘El Adrea’”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 113

5. countableuncountableScots lawThe process by which persons, lands, or effects are seized for debt; process for enforcing the attendance of witnesses or the production of writings.