Also 6–7 loquution. [ad. L. locūtiōn-em (loquū-), n. of action f. loquī to speak. Cf. F. locution (14–15th c.).]
† 1. The act of speaking, utterance. Obs.
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), II. 563. Of the hartes habundans the tunge makyth locucion.
c. 1500. Melusine, 20. I wil not make grett locucion or talking.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 23/1. A whole lippe is necessarye to the loquution and speeche.
1647. Trapp, Comm. Acts xviii. 24. An eloquent man…. It imports, 1 skill in the words…; 2 good locution.
1666. J. Smith, Old Age (ed. 2), 140. Dentition and Locution are for the most part Contemporaries.
1767. W. L. Lewis, Statius’ Thebaid, XII. 1180. Should gentle Phœbus fortify my Lungs, And give Locution from a hundred Tongues.
2. Speech as the expression of thought; discourse; also, style of discourse, expression. Now rare or Obs.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 98 b. Let no man call hym selfe a diuyne: that knoweth nat the figuris of construction and locucion: and specially allygoris [etc.].
a. 1547. Bale, Image Both Ch., XV. (1550), i j. Under the shadowe of fygurate locution.
1603. H. Crosse, Vertues Commw. (1878), 116. To carrie the minde into sinfull thoughts, with vncleane locution, and vnchaste behauiour.
1606. Marston, Sophonisba, I. ii. I hate these figures in locution, These about phrases forc’d by ceremonie.
1726. Ayliffe, Parergon, 347. A Libel may be obscure in point of Diction or Locution.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. xxi. II. 196. The vein of Homeric feeling and the general style of locution … would be maintained.
1851. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. 49. Their modes of speech accustomed every ear to their locution.
1852. Ferrier, Grk. Philos. (1866), I. Lett. to De Quincey 483. In barbarous locution, ‘the knowable alone is the ignorable.’
3. A form of expression or phraseology; a phrase, expression.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 77. That somme men seyde Paradise to atteyn to the cercle of the moone, Alexander seythe that not to be trawthe, but after a locucion iperbolicalle.
1547. Hooper, Answ. Bp. Winchester, D 1 b. Here ys a uery plain trope and figuratiue loquucion.
1555. Bradford, in Foxe, A. & M. (1583), II. 1616/2. Which is an hyperbolicall loquution.
1650. Charleton, Paradoxes, 133. I abhorre metaphoricall locutions in serious and abstruse subjects.
1654. Jer. Taylor, Real Pres., 140. If Testament in one place be taken for the instrument of his Testament, it is a tropical loquution.
1816. Bentham, Chrestom., 146. Analysis and synthesis … are locutions which are but too frequently to be found employed.
1824. Landor, Imag. Conv., Johnson & Tooke, Wks. 1853, I. 196/1. I cannot but think that so irregular a locution was at first occasioned by abbreviation in manuscripts.
1847. Grote, Greece, II. ix. III. 33. It was essential to the security of the despot that … he should strike off the overtopping ears of corn in the field (to use the Greek locution).
1860. Illustr. Lond. News, 14 July, 35/3. A permanent Philological Board to watch over the introduction of new words and locutions.
1879. Howells, L. Aroostook, xxvii. 319. The vigorous and imaginative locutions of the Pike language.
