fluent
/ˈfluːənt
/adjective
1Able to express oneself easily and articulately: a fluent speaker and writer on technical subjects...
- Darnell talked for two minutes and said a lot less than a fluent speaker could have communicated in three sentences…
- By that definition, only a handful of fluent speakers remains.
- It points out that fluent speakers have fallen from 250,000 over 80 years ago to under 30,000 today.
Synonyms
articulate, eloquent, expressive, communicative, coherent, cogent, illuminating;
vivid, silver-tongued, persuasive, glib, voluble
1.1Able to speak or write a particular foreign language easily and accurately: she became fluent in French and German...
- I'm nearly 26, I have a first class honours degree, I'm fluent in a foreign language, and I can't even get a job that pays peanuts in a provincial theatre.
- He, however, confesses that he is not very fluent in the foreign languages since he does not get too much of a chance to converse in those languages.
- As a result, there's a fairly good chance that the child will, if not be entirely fluent in another language, be able to understand and speak a few words of a foreign language.
Synonyms
articulate, able to speak or write … easily and accurately;
(be fluent in) have a (good) command of
1.2(Of a foreign language) spoken accurately and with facility: he spoke fluent Spanish...
- Franklin Roosevelt spoke fluent French and German and worked to create the United Nations, but no one doubted that his allegiance was to America above all.
- They speak fluent French, passable German, and have notions of Spanish.
- The restaurant manager spoke fluent English and German and all the staff were very attentive without being intrusive.
2Smoothly graceful and effortless: his style of play was fast and fluent...
- He left ECM in 1985, so this compilation covers the first decade of his career: the melodies are fresh; the solos are fluent and graceful.
- His piano playing is smooth, fluent and inventive and the band, when given room to breathe, turn in some fine playing.
- The elf smiled, concentrating for a moment, then glanced up, tracing one hand across invisible arcane symbols in graceful, fluent motions.
Synonyms
free-flowing, smooth, effortless, easy, natural, fluid, unbroken, uninterrupted, continuous;
graceful, elegant;
regular, rhythmic
3Able to flow freely; fluid: a fluent discharge from the nose
Origin
Late 16th century: from Latin fluent- 'flowing', from the verb fluere.
affluent from Late Middle English:
From Latin affluere ‘flow towards’, affluent was originally used to describe water either flowing towards a place or flowing freely without any restriction. It later came to mean ‘abundant’ and then ‘wealthy’, a meaning which dates from the mid 18th century. Related words, all based on Latin fluere ‘to flow’ are fluent (late 16th century) and fluid (Late Middle English); flume (Middle English) originally a stream; flux (Late Middle English) a state of flowing; effluent (Late Middle English) something that flows out; and superfluous (Late Middle English) ‘overflowing’.
Rhymes
- like death warmed up (or over)
- like enough (or most like)
- like father, like son
- like fury
- like (greased) lightning
- like hell
- like herding cats
- like it or not
- like it's going out of style (or fashion)
- likelihood
- likelihood ratio
- likeliness
- likely
- likely-looking
- like mad
- like magic
- like-minded
- like-mindedness
- liken
- likeness
- like nobody's business
- like nothing on earth
- like (or for) grim death
- like peas (or two peas) in a pod
- like pulling teeth