fluent

[ floo-uhnt ]

adjective

1. spoken or written with ease:

   fluent French.

2. able to speak or write smoothly, easily, or readily:

   a fluent speaker;

   fluent in six languages.

3. easy; graceful:

   fluent motion;

   fluent curves.

4. flowing, as a stream.
5. capable of flowing; fluid, as liquids or gases.
6. easily changed or adapted; pliant.

fluent

/ ˈfluːənt /

adjective

1. able to speak or write a specified foreign language with facility
2. spoken or written with facility

   his French is fluent

3. easy and graceful in motion or shape
4. flowing or able to flow freely

Derived Forms

• ˈfluently, adverb

Other Words From

• flu·en·cy flu·ent·ness noun
• flu·ent·ly adverb
• non·flu·en·cy noun
• non·flu·ent adjective
• non·flu·ent·ness noun
• o·ver·flu·en·cy noun
• o·ver·flu·ent adjective
• o·ver·flu·ent·ness noun
• trans·flu·ent adjective
• un·flu·ent adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of fluent¹

First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin fluent- (stem of fluēns ) “flowing,” present participle of fluere; -ent

Word History and Origins

Origin of fluent¹

C16: from Latin: flowing, from fluere to flow

Synonym Study

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. eloquent.

Example Sentences

Ever since, she’s made sure to vote, even though the native Khmer speaker isn’t fluent in English.

From ProPublica

Best of all, in my quest to get more fluent, I’m making lots of interesting new friends to share with all of you.

From Fortune

Covid-19 has also taught us that becoming fluent in and open to new technology to collaborate and run the business is more important than ever.

From MIT Technology Review

He was fluent in the language of the merchant, and many of his interlocutors were craftsmen and small business owners.

From Fortune

Thanks to BLANC, Primer was able to train a summarization tool that can generate pretty fluent summaries.

From Fortune

To work at Rizzoli you had to be fluent in several languages: three was the minimum when I began.

From The Daily Beast

As fluent in drug trade jargon as Martian, Future peppers his lyrics with interstellar imagery befitting of his far out vocals.

From The Daily Beast

A more recent phenomenon in the political universe is politicians of Hispanic heritage who are not fluent in Spanish.

From The Daily Beast

The Telegraph reports that he is fluent in Swahili and a keen zoologist.

From The Daily Beast

The conversation was entirely in Russian—Weir is impressively fluent.

From The Daily Beast

Cui spoke of it as a beautiful, talented, fluent work, which showed originality and invention.

From Project Gutenberg

Although not a fluent reader, the New Testament became his constant companion, and a change passed over him apparent to all.

From Project Gutenberg

He gradually became more fluent, and studied how best to impress his comrades.

From Project Gutenberg

Practice makes perfect, for I spoke to them more or less in fluent French!

From Project Gutenberg

Francesca is fluent at all times, but once seated on the foot of my bed she becomes eloquent!

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• eloquent
• persuasive
• talkative
• vocal