speech
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /spiːt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -iːtʃ
ipa: /spiːt͡ʃ/
ipa: /spɛːt͡ʃ/
Forms: form: speeches
form: speach
Etymology: From Middle English speche, from Old English spǣċ, sprǣċ (“speech, discourse, language”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprāku (“speech, language”), from Proto-Indo-European *spereg-, *spreg- (“to make a sound”). Cognate with Dutch spraak (“speech”), German Sprache (“language, speech”). More at speak.
Senses: examples: text: He had a bad speech impediment.
text: After the accident she lost her speech.
text: All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion[…] such talk had been distressingly out of place.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: I was at liberty to attend to Wilbert, who I could see desired speech with me. […] As far as Bobbie and I were concerned, silence reigned, this novel twist in the scenario having wiped speech from our lips, as the expression is, but Phyllis continued vocal. […] For perhaps a quarter of a minute after he had passed from the scene the aged relative stood struggling for utterance. At the end of this period she found speech. “Of all the damn silly fatheaded things!”
ref: 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “XV AND XVIII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
glosses: The ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.
examples: text: It was hard to hear his speech over the noise.
text: Her speech was soft and lilting.
text: Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
ref: 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
glosses: The act of speaking, a certain style of it.
examples: text: The candidate made some ambitious promises in his campaign speech.
text: The constant design of both these orators, in all their speeches, was to drive some one particular point.
ref: 1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman:
text: He's going to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. We've been caught short as usual, and somebody has got to make a speech on ideals and the great world outside to those blasted boys, so he fits in nicely. I believe he's a very fine speaker. His only trouble is that he's stymied unless he has his speech with him and can read it. Calls it referring to his notes. […] “So that's why he's been going about looking like a dead fish. I suppose Roberta broke the engagement?” “In a speech lasting five minutes without a pause for breath.”
ref: 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “I AND XII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
synonyms: address
allocution
monologue
oration
soliloquy
glosses: A formal session of speaking, especially a long oral message given publicly by one person.
examples: text: For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 3:6:
text: The speche of Englande is a base speche to other noble speches, as Italion, Castylion, and Frenche; howbeit the speche of Englande of late dayes is amended.
ref: 1542, Andrew Boorde, The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge:
synonyms: word: language
word: leid
word: lingo
word: speech
word: tongue
glosses: A dialect, vernacular, or (dated) a language.
examples: text: This word is mostly used in speech.
glosses: Language used orally, rather than in writing.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: An utterance that is quoted; see direct speech, reported speech
examples: text: The duke[…]did of me demand / What was the speech among the Londoners / Concerning the French journey.
ref: 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
glosses: Public talk, news, gossip, rumour.
Synonyms: word: locution
word: parlance
word: speech
Hyponyms: after-dinner speech
byspeech
forespeech
pressured speech
Meronyms: word: oratory
Derived terms: acceptance speech
antispeech
articulatory speech recognition
audio-visual speech recognition
avoidance speech
by-speech
caretaker speech
child-directed speech
compelled speech
co-speech
counterspeech
cyberspeech
deep learning speech synthesis
endspeech
figure of speech
free as in speech
freedom of speech
free indirect speech
free speech
free speech zone
furspeech
hate-speech
hate speech
helium speech
impulsive speech
indirect speech
keynote speech
King's speech
liberty of speech
maiden speech
midspeech
misspeech
nonspeech
oblique speech
opening speech
part of speech
plain speech
prespeech
pressure of speech
protospeech
Queen's speech
running speech
second-hand speech
speech act
speech balloon
speech-based picking
speech bubble
speech community
speechcraft
speech-crier
speech day
speech disfluency
speech disorder
speecher
speech fright
speechfright
speech from the throne
speechful
speechie
speechification
speechify
speech impediment
speechless
speechlike
speechlore
speechmaker
speechmaking
speech mark
speech path
speech pathologist
speechreading
speech recognition
speech tag
speech therapist
speech therapy
speech time
speechway
speech way
speechworthy
speechwright
speechwriter
speechwriting
speechy
stump speech
symbolic speech
text-to-speech
throne speech
time-assignment speech interpolation
twin speech
uwu speech
Visible Speech
Related terms: speak