Noun

(en noun)

conscientiousness or determination or perseverance when doing something

A public stage-coach. (19th century, now used only in reference to France or other European countries including Great Britain.)

* 1818 , , Volume 1, Chapter V:

Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.

* {{quote-book

, year=1879 , author= , title= , passage=Being in a civilised country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon.}}

(legal, Scotland) The process by which persons, lands, or effects are seized for debt; process for enforcing the attendance of witnesses or the production of writings.

Noun

(en-noun)

(label) Mental focus.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.}}

* , chapter=3

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, volume=100, issue=2, page=87, magazine=(American Scientist)

, title= The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.}}

(label) An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.

* 1818 , (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), (Frankenstein); or, the Modern Prometheus , ch. 3,

She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper.

* 1910 , (Stephen Leacock), " ,

For some time past I have been the recipient of very marked attentions from a young lady.

A state of alertness in the standing position.