Background: Two of my favorite musicians, Beck and Tom Waits, tend to use a very similar lyrical style. I have asked many people if there is a name for this style, as I imagine it is used quite often in poetry. I have yet to discover if there is a proper name, and so, I created my own term: Ambient Diction

am"bi'ent ยท dic"tion n.

Word choice which focuses on altering the tone of a poem, song, or story, and does nothing more. That is, the words themselves combine to form no specific meaning, but in the context of a sentenceculminate in a meaning comprised of nothing more than the connotations of its parts.

Examples: