资料来源 : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Diligence \Dil"i*gence\, n. [F. diligence, L. diligentia.]
   1. The quality of being diligent; carefulness; careful
      attention; -- the opposite of negligence.

   2. Interested and persevering application; devoted and
      painstaking effort to accomplish what is undertaken;
      assiduity in service.

            That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified
            in; and the best of me is diligence.  --Shak.

   3. (Scots Law) Process by which persons, lands, or effects
      are seized for debt; process for enforcing the attendance
      of witnesses or the production of writings.

   {To do one's diligence}, {give diligence}, {use diligence},
      to exert one's self; to make interested and earnest
      endeavor.

            And each of them doth all his diligence To do unto
            the fest['e] reverence.               --Chaucer.

   Syn: Attention; industry; assiduity; sedulousness;
        earnestness; constancy; heed; heedfulness; care;
        caution. -- {Diligence}, {Industry}. Industry has the
        wider sense of the two, implying an habitual devotion to
        labor for some valuable end, as knowledge, property,
        etc. Diligence denotes earnest application to some
        specific object or pursuit, which more or less directly
        has a strong hold on one's interests or feelings. A man
        may be diligent for a time, or in seeking some favorite
        end, without meriting the title of industrious. Such was
        the case with Fox, while Burke was eminent not only for
        diligence, but industry; he was always at work, and
        always looking out for some new field of mental effort.

              The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for
              the end it works to.                --Shak.

              Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which
              an historical writer ascribe to himself. --Gibbon.



   6. To make ready for an object, purpose, or use, as food by
      cooking; to cook completely or sufficiently; as, the meat
      is done on one side only.

   7. To put or bring into a form, state, or condition,
      especially in the phrases, to do death, to put to death;
      to slay; to do away (often do away with), to put away; to
      remove; to do on, to put on; to don; to do off, to take
      off, as dress; to doff; to do into, to put into the form
      of; to translate or transform into, as a text.

            Done to death by slanderous tongues.  -- Shak.

            The ground of the difficulty is done away. -- Paley.

            Suspicions regarding his loyalty were entirely done
            away.                                 --Thackeray.

            To do on our own harness, that we may not; but we
            must do on the armor of God.          -- Latimer.

            Then Jason rose and did on him a fair Blue woolen
            tunic.                                -- W. Morris
                                                  (Jason).

            Though the former legal pollution be now done off,
            yet there is a spiritual contagion in idolatry as
            much to be shunned.                   --Milton.

            It [``Pilgrim's Progress''] has been done into
            verse: it has been done into modern English. --
                                                  Macaulay.

   8. To cheat; to gull; to overreach. [Colloq.]

            He was not be done, at his time of life, by
            frivolous offers of a compromise that might have
            secured him seventy-five per cent.    -- De Quincey.

   9. To see or inspect; to explore; as, to do all the points of
      interest. [Colloq.]

   10. (Stock Exchange) To cash or to advance money for, as a
       bill or note.

   Note:
       (a) Do and did are much employed as auxiliaries, the verb
           to which they are joined being an infinitive. As an
           auxiliary the verb do has no participle. ``I do set
           my bow in the cloud.'' --Gen. ix. 13. [Now archaic or
           rare except for emphatic assertion.]

                 Rarely . . . did the wrongs of individuals to
                 the knowledge of the public.     -- Macaulay.
       (b) They are often used in emphatic construction. ``You
           don't say so, Mr. Jobson. -- but I do say so.'' --Sir
           W. Scott. ``I did love him, but scorn him now.''
           --Latham.
       (c) In negative and interrogative constructions, do and
           did are in common use. I do not wish to see them;
           what do you think? Did C[ae]sar cross the Tiber? He
           did not. ``Do you love me?'' --Shak.
       (d) Do, as an auxiliary, is supposed to have been first
           used before imperatives. It expresses entreaty or
           earnest request; as, do help me. In the imperative
           mood, but not in the indicative, it may be used with
           the verb to be; as, do be quiet. Do, did, and done
           often stand as a general substitute or representative
           verb, and thus save the repetition of the principal
           verb. ``To live and die is all we have to do.''
           --Denham. In the case of do and did as auxiliaries,
           the sense may be completed by the infinitive (without
           to) of the verb represented. ``When beauty lived and
           died as flowers do now.'' --Shak. ``I . . . chose my
           wife as she did her wedding gown.'' --Goldsmith.

                 My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being.
                 As the light does the shadow.    -- Longfellow.
           In unemphatic affirmative sentences do is, for the
           most part, archaic or poetical; as, ``This just
           reproach their virtue does excite.'' --Dryden.

   {To do one's best}, {To do one's diligence} (and the like),
      to exert one's self; to put forth one's best or most or
      most diligent efforts. ``We will . . . do our best to gain
      their assent.'' --Jowett (Thucyd.).

   {To do one's business}, to ruin one. [Colloq.] --Wycherley.

   {To do one shame}, to cause one shame. [Obs.]

   {To do over}.
       (a) To make over; to perform a second time.
       (b) To cover; to spread; to smear. ``Boats . . . sewed
           together and done over with a kind of slimy stuff
           like rosin.'' --De Foe.

   {To do to death}, to put to death. (See 7.) [Obs.]

   {To do up}.
       (a) To put up; to raise. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
       (b) To pack together and envelop; to pack up.
       (c) To accomplish thoroughly. [Colloq.]
       (d) To starch and iron. ``A rich gown of velvet, and a
           ruff done up with the famous yellow starch.''
           --Hawthorne.

   {To do way}, to put away; to lay aside. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

   {To do with}, to dispose of; to make use of; to employ; --
      usually preceded by what. ``Men are many times brought to
      that extremity, that were it not for God they would not
      know what to do with themselves.'' --Tillotson.

   {To have to do with}, to have concern, business or
      intercourse with; to deal with. When preceded by what, the
      notion is usually implied that the affair does not concern
      the person denoted by the subject of have. ``Philology has
      to do with language in its fullest sense.'' --Earle.
      ``What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? --2 Sam.
      xvi. 10.