Both Uses of
diligent
in
The House of the Seven Gables
- They were generally poverty-stricken; always plebeian and obscure; working with unsuccessful diligence at handicrafts; laboring on the wharves, or following the sea, as sailors before the mast; living here and there about the town, in hired tenements, and coming finally to the almshouse as the natural home of their old age.†
Chpt 1diligence = hard work and care
- This young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, it must be observed, was a person little understood, and not very generally liked, in the town where he resided; not that anything could be alleged against his integrity, or his skill and diligence in the handicraft which he exercised.†
Chpt 13 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(diligent as in: she is diligent) working carefully and steadily with effort and attention to detail
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More specifically in law, diligence or due diligence refers to the care or attention expected by the law in doing something such as fulfilling the terms of a contract.
More rarely, but sometimes seen in classic literature, a diligence is a public stagecoach.