How to Use diction in a Sentence

diction

noun
  • The student's essay was full of careless diction.
  • The actor's diction was so poor I could hardly understand what he was saying.
  • His manner is warm and inviting while his diction is clear and crisp.
    — Rochelle O'Gorman, latimes.com, 7 June 2018
  • Maltman’s diction, though, lacked punch, and his voice thinned out on the lower end.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 25 Sep. 2023
  • This was the arrogance of it… my notes were grammar and diction.
    — Mikey O'Connell, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Dec. 2024
  • Police can yell really loud and their diction is quite clear.
    — Garrison Keillor, Twin Cities, 21 Apr. 2017
  • She was bullied for everything from her hat choice to her weight to her voice to her diction.
    — Molly Jong-Fas, Vogue, 3 Sep. 2021
  • Her work is known for its metaphors from nature and straightforward diction.
    — Carole Goldberg, courant.com, 16 May 2018
  • To boost your Italian diction, learn also to say buon giorno, for hi/good day.
    — Tom Mullen, Forbes, 16 Mar. 2025
  • But Auschwitz had also left its mark on his diction—a sort of verbal tattoo.
    — Literary Hub, 13 May 2026
  • No posh Manhattan private school diction for these guys, not on your life.
    — Mark Warren, Popular Mechanics, 23 Mar. 2017
  • This isn’t to suggest that Young needs to pick up where Hunt has left off, in terms of salty diction.
    — Joseph Person, New York Times, 27 May 2026
  • Nat, a man in his mid-forties, has a diction that feels decidedly out of joint with his age and his era.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 26 Oct. 2019
  • Why was his manner of diction so much more gripping than the performers in the play proper?
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2021
  • Words and syllables land in an odd way, and the diction and clarity is slightly off.
    — Nick Romano, EW.com, 20 Nov. 2024
  • Their magic called on the forces of nature and the beauty of poetic diction.
    — Valerie Kivelson, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 June 2022
  • Back in her barrio, she’s deemed as an outsider because of her Anglo diction and ways.
    — Marc Silver, Washington Post, 9 June 2019
  • Yes, the diction in the tweets is strange sometimes, but no more so than, say, Jeff Bezos’s sexts.
    — Dustin Kurtz, The New Republic, 16 Aug. 2019
  • For the cast, there was Urdu-language diction and body-language training.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 7 May 2024
  • Another thing was the importance stressed on simple, to-the-point diction.
    — High School Journalism Institute, oregonlive.com, 16 July 2019
  • Voice mode placed an emphasis on the clear diction and voice of each player's robotic advisor.
    — Sian Babish, chicagotribune.com, 22 Sep. 2020
  • And yet, perhaps because of the strange diction, the phrase is more than just a gustatory command.
    — Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2024
  • Val’s voice and diction would fit into a movie starring The Three Stooges, who grew up not far from here.
    — Steve Ditlea, SPIN, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Throughout, the syntax is punchy and slangy, while the diction often grows brazenly recondite.
    — Michael Dirda, Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Nobody can do more with a sentence’s cadence, diction and imagery than Sinclair.
    — Michael Dirda, Washington Post, 1 June 2023
  • Bowles’s diction is jagged and strange, surprising but seemingly inevitable.
    — Nicole Flattery, Harpers Magazine, 19 Sep. 2025
  • The first three were post-dictions of inflation; the latter four were predictions that had not yet been observed when they were made.
    — Ethan Siegel, Big Think, 23 Sep. 2025
  • The diction is matter-of-fact, the syntax conventional; the imagery is simple and bare-boned.
    — Donika Kelly, New York Times, 27 Jan. 2022
  • But diction was mushy — this in German, a language of forward vowels and crisp consonants.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 9 June 2023
  • But Isaac comes to the rescue with impeccable diction married to raw emotion.
    — Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 19 Aug. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'diction.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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