diplomatic

1. 1
   adjective

   Concerning the official relationships between the governments of different countries.

   The two nations resumed diplomatic talks after years of silence.

   Diplomatic relations between the neighboring states broke down last month.

   Note

   Statecraft is the territory here, and the word settles into fixed pairings: diplomatic service, diplomatic relations, diplomatic talks. Relations are severed, broken off or resumed. It can also classify people by profession. Patrick Wintour's 2022 profile of Sergei Lavrov describes him as born to "diplomatic parents," meaning parents who were diplomats. That reading is easy to blur with the "tactful" meaning, which describes manner instead.

2. 2
   adjective

   Showing tact and courtesy, and using discussion to avoid bad feelings or arguments.

   She gave a diplomatic answer that satisfied both sides.

   He was diplomatic enough to praise everyone's work before suggesting changes.

   Similartactful, discreet, politic, courteous, judicious

   Oppositetactless, undiplomatic, blunt, insensitive

   Note

   Here the word describes manner rather than institution, and it is the meaning that takes more and most: a more diplomatic reply, the most diplomatic person in the room. It often pairs with a second quality of a remark, as when thoughtful corrections are diplomatic as well as instructional. Tact and helpfulness are presented as compatible, not competing.

3. 3
   adjective

   Describing an edition of a text that reproduces a single base manuscript, with variant readings from other manuscripts recorded in the critical apparatus.

   The press issued a diplomatic edition based on the earliest surviving manuscript.

   Scholars prefer a diplomatic transcription when the manuscript's exact wording matters.

   Note

   Textual scholars use the term for an edition that keeps faith with one base manuscript, errors included, instead of correcting it. Readings from the other manuscripts go into the critical apparatus, never into the text itself. Its usual partners are edition and transcription. The term names an editor's method and has nothing to do with tact.

4. 4
   adjective

   Relating to diplomatics, the study of old texts and documents, and to the dating of historical handwriting.

   Her diplomatic analysis authenticated the medieval charter.

   The journal published a diplomatic study of the script in the ancient deed.

   Similarpaleographic

   Note

   A scholar's adjective that belongs to archives, not embassies. A diplomatic analysis of a charter examines its script and form to fix its age and authenticity. Context does the sorting. Next to charter, deed or manuscript, the word points here. Next to relations or service, it points to the statecraft meaning.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The science concerned with deciphering ancient writings and documents and determining their age, authenticity, and origin; paleography.

   His mastery of diplomatic let him date the charter from its script alone.

   Courses in diplomatic teach students to judge the authenticity of medieval deeds.

   Similarpaleography

   Note

   The name of the discipline itself takes no article and no plural, much like paleography. Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett's Studies in English legal history (1983) writes of "the subject-matter of diplomatic." Its original object, the diploma, explains the whole word family, which descends through French diplomatique from New Latin diplōmaticus. The variant diplomatics names the same field behind the scholarly adjective.

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