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Diligence

Transport
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A large public stagecoach formerly used for long-distance passenger travel.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, a diligence can establish a historical world of roads, inns, dust, and shared travel. Its crowded interior brings strangers together briefly, allowing a poet to explore chance encounters, gossip, class, and anonymity. The vehicle’s laborious progress over rough ground may mirror an emotional journey that cannot be hurried. Since the term sounds formal and old-fashioned, it can also lend a poem an air of distance, romance, or faded European elegance.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The diligence arrived at dawn with six tired horses” uses the old word for a stagecoach to establish a historical setting; A poet might write, “By diligence, she fled the city before the war began,” making travel part of narrative urgency; “Dust followed the diligence across the Spanish plain” creates movement through a broad landscape; Because diligence can also mean steady care, a poet may play on both meanings in “The diligence carried her diligence toward home”
Additional Notes
Diligence is an older term for a public stagecoach, not simply hard work. It may evoke crowded travel, long roads, and pre-railway journeys.
Also Known As
Stagecoach Mail Coach
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