fluent
[floo-uh nt]
- spoken or written with ease: fluent French.
- able to speak or write smoothly, easily, or readily: a fluent speaker; fluent in six languages.
- easy; graceful: fluent motion; fluent curves.
- flowing, as a stream.
- capable of flowing; fluid, as liquids or gases.
- easily changed or adapted; pliant.
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Origin of fluent
Synonyms
See more synonyms for fluent on Thesaurus.com1, 2. Fluent, glib, voluble may refer to a flow of words. Fluent suggests the easy and ready flow of an accomplished speaker and is usually a term of commendation: a fluent and interesting speech. Glib implies an excessive fluency divorced from sincerity or profundity; it often suggests talking smoothly and hurriedly to cover up or deceive, not giving the hearer a chance to stop and think; it may also imply a plausible, prepared, and well-rehearsed lie: He had a glib answer for everything. Voluble implies the overcopious and often rapid flow of words characteristic of a person who loves to talk: She overwhelmed him with her voluble answer. See also eloquent.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for fluently
Contemporary Examples
The helmsman, who did not speak English or Italian fluently, responded, “Hard to Starboard?”
Costa Concordia’s Captain’s Culpability in Crash and Deaths Weighed by JudgeBarbie Latza Nadeau
October 16, 2012
He painted her, as fluently as Sargent or Boldini might have, then wrapped the painting, and tied up the package.
My father practiced his new signature until he could write it fluently.
How many 72-year-olds do you know who can speak that fluently?
Historical Examples
He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly: a man supremely self-controlled.
The SnareRafael Sabatini
You speak foreign languages—at least, French and German—fluently.
Sir Jasper CarewCharles James Lever
She spoke French and Italian as fluently as she did English.
Queen ElizabethJacob Abbott
He said this with a slightly foreign accent, but fluently and easily.
The Bramleighs Of Bishop's FollyCharles James Lever
Then the great man began to swear, and did it well and fluently, with gusto.
Cruel Barbara AllenDavid Christie Murray
fluent
- able to speak or write a specified foreign language with facility
- spoken or written with facilityhis French is fluent
- easy and graceful in motion or shape
- flowing or able to flow freely
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin: flowing, from fluere to flow
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for fluently
fluent
adj.
1580s, "flowing freely" (of water, also of speech), from Latin fluentem (nominative fluens) "lax, relaxed," figuratively "flowing, fluent," present participle of fluere "to flow, stream, run, melt," from PIE *bhleugw-, extended form of *bhleu- "to swell, well up, overflow" (cf. Latin flumen "river;" Greek phluein "to boil over, bubble up," phlein "to abound"), an extension of root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell;" see bole. Used interchangeably with fluid in Elizabethan times. Related: Fluently.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper