diligence

Noun

diligence (countable and uncountable, plural diligences)

1. Steady application; industry; careful work involving long-term effort.
2. The qualities of a hard worker, including conscientiousness, determination, and perseverance.
3. Carefulness, in particular, the necessary care appropriate to a particular task or responsibility.
   • Before entering, however, upon a particular consideration of the distinctions of the common law, with, a view of ascertaining the precise nature and extent of the obligations of the bailee in the various sorts of bailment, it may be of use to say a few words on the subject of the various degrees of...1863 Joseph Story: Commentaries on the Law of Bailments
   • He then proceeded to criticise the wording of the arbitration clause in the treaty. Who was to say what was "due diligence?' "Due diligence" itself meant nothing. What was "due diligence" as between man and man was not "due diligence" as between power and power. The rule was to be a rule of...1872, The American Law Review, volume VI, page 189
4. (historical) A four-wheeled public stage-coach, widely used in France before the general establishment of the railways.
   • 1822 M.Reichard, An Itinerary Of France And Belgium
     The French diligence is a most curious and unique machine : it is a strange compound of the English stage waggon and coach; and it similarly possesses all the conveniences of each without their defects. It contains six, eight, or ten passengers...
   • Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding...
5. (Scots law) The process by which persons, lands, or effects are seized for debt; process for enforcing the attendance of witnesses or the production of writings.
   • The precepts against parties, to whose oath of verity any point is referred, do only command them to compear at the term, with certification, that if they compear not, they shall be holden as confessing the point referred to their oath; but precepts against witnesses cannot have that certification...1832 James, Viscount of Stair and J,S, More. The institutions of the law of Scotland. Vol 2, p 705