fluency

English

Etymology

From Late Latin fluentia. Cognate with French fluence.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfluːənsi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

fluency

Wikipedia

fluency (countable and uncountable, plural fluencies)

1. The quality of smoothness of flow.
   • 1996, Vera Morris, Bill Francoeur, A Little Princess: The Musical: Adapted from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “Sara Crewe”, Denver, Colo.: Pioneer Drama Service, →OCLC, act I, scene i, page 4:

     She has fluency, nobility, / Elegance and symmetry, / Stability, fluidity, / Like poetry in motion.

2. (linguistics) The quality of being fluent in a language; A person's command of a particular language.
3. The quality of consistently applying skill correctly in the manner of one well-practiced at it, requiring little deliberate thought to perform without mistakes
   • 2011 December 10, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 1 – 0 Everton”, in BBC Sport‎:

     While Gunners boss Arsene Wenger had warned his players against letting the pre-match festivities distract them from the task at hand, they clearly struggled for fluency early on.

Derived terms

• disfluency
• dysfluency
• nonfluency
• overfluency

Translations

quality of smoothness of flow

Armenian: սահունություն (hy) (sahunutʻyun) Bulgarian: течливост f (tečlivost) Chinese: Mandarin: 流暢 / 流畅 (zh) (liúchàng) Finnish: virtaavuus, nestemäisyys German: Flüssigkeit (de) f, Fluss (de) m Hungarian: könnyedség (hu), gördülékenység (hu), folyékonyság (hu) Irish: éascaíocht f, líofacht f Japanese: 流暢 (ja) (りゅうちょう, ryūchō) Korean: 유창 (ko) (yuchang) Polish: biegłość (pl) f Portuguese: fluidez (pt) f Romanian: fluiditate (ro) f, fluență (ro) f Russian: бе́глость (ru) f (béglostʹ) Spanish: fluidez (es) f, fluencia f Turkish: akıcılık (tr)

linguistics: being fluent in a language

Armenian: սահունություն (hy) (sahunutʻyun), արագախոսություն (hy) (aragaxosutʻyun) Catalan: fluïdesa (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 流利 (zh) (liúlì) Dutch: vlotheid (nl) f Esperanto: flueco Finnish: sujuvuus (fi) German: usually expressed using the adverb flüssig (de), Sprechflüssigkeit f, rare: Geläufigkeit f, usually for skill and elegance in a native language: Flüssigkeit (de) f Greek: ευφράδεια (el) f (effrádeia), ευχέρεια (el) f (efchéreia) Ancient Greek: εὐρημοσύνη f (eurēmosúnē) Hebrew: רהיטות (r'hitut) Hindi: रवानी (hi) f (ravānī) Hungarian: folyékony nyelvtudás Icelandic: flæði n Irish: líofacht f Italian: scioltezza (it) f Japanese: ぺらぺら (ja) (perapera), 流暢 (ja) (りゅうちょう, ryūchō) Khmer: ភាព​ស្ទាត់ជំនាញ (phiəp-stŏətcumniəñ) Korean: 유창 (ko) (yuchang), 유려 (ko) (yuryeo) Latin: lēvitās f Malay: kefasihan (ms) Polish: płynność (pl), biegłość (pl) f Portuguese: fluência (pt) f Romanian: fluență (ro) f Russian: свобо́дное владе́ние n (svobódnoje vladénije) Spanish: fluidez (es) f, soltura f, facundia (es) f Thai: ความคล่องแคล่ว (th) Turkish: akıcılık (tr) Vietnamese: sự thành thạo Welsh: rhuglder (cy)

quality of consistently applying skill correctly

Hungarian: jártasság (hu) Korean: 능숙도 (neungsukdo) Polish: biegłość (pl) f Spanish: desenvoltura f, desparpajo (es) m

References

• “fluency”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.