vocal

vocal 1 Vocal, articulate, oral can all mean uttered by the voice or having to do with utterance.

Vocal implies the use of voice, but not necessarily of speech or language; thus, vocal sounds are sounds produced by a creature that has vocal organs; vocal music is contrasted with instrumental music because the musical tones are produced by the voice rather than by a musical instrument.

Articulate implies the use of distinct intelligible language; thus, speech is the uttering of articulate sounds; articulate cries are those that are expressed in meaningful words rather than in meaningless sounds

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Constance nodded her head in thorough agreement. She did not trouble to go into articulate apologies— Bennett

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Oral implies the use of the voice rather than the hand (as in writing or typing) in communicating (as thoughts, wishes, orders, questions, or answers)

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an oral examination

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an oral command

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the oral transmission of tradition

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2 Vocal, articulate, fluent, eloquent, voluble, glib can mean being able to express oneself clearly or easily, or showing such ability.

Vocal usually implies ready responsiveness to an occasion for expression or free and usually forceful, insistent, or emphatic voicing of one's ideas or feelings

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earth's millions daily fed, a world employed in gathering plenty yet to be enjoyed, till gratitude grew vocal in the praise of God— Cowper

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this instantaneous indignation of the most impulsive and vocal of men was diligently concealed for at least six weeks, with reporters camped upon his doorstep day and night— Mencken

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Articulate is as often applied to thoughts and emotions with reference to their capacity for expression as to persons or their utterances. It implies the use of language which exactly and distinctly reveals or conveys what seeks expression

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the deepest intuitions of a race are deposited in its art; no criticism can make these wholly articulate— Binyon

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the primitive poet . . . was used by the community to make its spiritual needs articulate— Day Lewis

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how can you write about a literary subject . . . when you yourself are hardly articulate, can scarcely express the most commonplace thoughts— Edmund Wilson

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Fluent stresses facility in speaking or writing and copiousness in the flow of words; unlike vocal and articulate, it refers chiefly to the manner of the expression rather than to the matter seeking expression

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it was his gift to be fluent on anything or nothing— Stevenson

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The word can carry a definite suggestion of depreciation or contempt politically at the mercy of every bumptious adventurer and fluent charlatan— Shaw) but it also is the only one of these words capable of implying facility and ease *hi the use of a foreign language

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had a fluent command of idiomatic French

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Eloquent usually implies fluency but it suggests also the stimulus of powerful emotion and its expression in fervent and moving language; it is applicable not only to speakers but to writers and can be extended to things that convey similar suggestions (see also EXPRESSIVE)

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pressed his arm reassuringly, and the gesture was more eloquent than any words could be— Wolfe

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Tully was not so eloquent as thou, thou nameless column with the buried base— Byron

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the wording of the Weimar Constitution was sweet and eloquent to the ear of any democratically minded man— Shirer

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Voluble and glib both imply loquacity and are usually derogatory. Voluble suggests a flow of language that is not easily stemmed

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indulge in voluble explanations

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a voluble person, but at last the flow of words stopped— Glasgow

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Glib implies such facility in utterance as to suggest superficiality or emptiness in what is said or slipperiness or untrustworthiness in the speaker

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a glib reply

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he has a glib tongue

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their only virtue, a glib conversance with such topics as came up for discussion— Sackville-West

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Analogous words: expressing, voicing, venting (see EXPRESS vb): *expressive, sententious, eloquent