Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A particular word, phrase, or expression, especially one that is used by a particular person or group.
  • noun Style of speaking; phraseology.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of speaking.
  • noun Discourse; form or mode of speaking; phraseology; a phrase.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Speech or discourse; a phrase; a form or mode of expression.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun speech or discourse; a phrase; a form or mode of expression.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a word or phrase that particular people use in particular situations

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English locucion, from Old French locution, from Latin locūtiō, locūtiōn-, from locūtus, past participle of loquī, to speak; see tolkw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin locūtiō ("speech"), from loquor ("speak"). Confer cognate French locution.

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Examples

  • Republicans, who have come up with the mid-term locution of "Pledge to America" to appropriate a populist tone, have meanwhile, called for an end of the "government takeover" of Fannie and Freddie and a "shrinking of their portfolios."

    Tom Silva: Why Should We Care About Housing? Tom Silva 2010

  • But we call a locution ˜proper™ when we use it according to the signification properly and principally given to it, and we call a locution ˜improper™ when we use it otherwise, although we legitimately can use it otherwise.

    John Buridan Zupko, Jack 2006

  • The preceding locution is established Mazzinian; the following clearly mine.

    Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1883

  • Republicans, who have come up with the mid-term locution of "Pledge to America" to appropriate a populist tone, have meanwhile, called for an end of the "government takeover" of Fannie and Freddie and a "shrinking of their portfolios."

    Tom Silva: Why Should We Care About Housing? Tom Silva 2010

  • If it is true that “woof ticket” did not emerge into the mainstream print media until the 1980s and 1990s sources you cited, I would consider it a fascinating example of a short-lived slang locution entering written usage decades after it had achieved obsolescence in its original oral context.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • If it is true that “woof ticket” did not emerge into the mainstream print media until the 1980s and 1990s sources you cited, I would consider it a fascinating example of a short-lived slang locution entering written usage decades after it had achieved obsolescence in its original oral context.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • When terms which signify mixed perfections are predicated of God, the analogy becomes so faint that the locution is a mere metaphor.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2: Assizes-Browne 1840-1916 1913

  • Figures like Gracie Allen on Burns and Allen, as well as Jane Ace, known as "radio's mistress of misinformation" on The Easy Aces, simply turned that kind of locution into a routine in the 1930s.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 3 1993

  • From Rush Limbaugh to Kenneth Blackwell, conservatives are openly voicing their hope that the government will fail to address the downturn (which led Steve Benen to wonder, but to his "locution" and "rhetoric."

    Night Light 2009

  • Credit is believed to be an exceptional example of this phenomenon, a rare instance of an ancient locution in Indo-European: *kerd- (“heart”) + *dhē- (“put”), meaning something like “to set the heart,” and thus “to place trust (in).”

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

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