Diction is the choice and use of words in speech or writing. It encompasses vocabulary level, degree of formality, concreteness or abstraction, and the overall texture of the language.

A writer’s diction may be formal or colloquial, technical or plain, Latinate or Anglo-Saxon, abstract or sensory. The same idea can be expressed in radically different diction, and each version will produce a different effect on the reader. Consistent diction helps establish tone and voice; sudden unexplained shifts can jar. In poetry and literary prose, diction is one of the primary means by which meaning and mood are created.

Analysis of diction looks at individual word choices and at patterns across a passage or work. Why this synonym rather than another? Why a concrete image here and an abstraction there? The answers reveal the writer’s attitude toward the subject and the audience. Good diction feels inevitable in retrospect, even though it is the product of deliberate selection.

The particular words a writer selects, and the patterns those choices form, constitute diction.