speech
//spiːt͡ʃ//
Forms
- Plural
- speeches
- present (v1)
- speech
- past (v2)
- speeched
- past participle (v3)
- speeched
- present participle
- speeching
- 3rd person singular
- speeches
Definitions
1.The ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.
- He had a bad speech impediment.
- After the accident she lost her speech.
2.The act of speaking, a certain style of it.
- Her speech was soft and lilting.
- It was hard to hear his speech over the noise.
- 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.
3.A formal session of speaking, especially a long oral message given publicly by one person.
- The candidate made some ambitious promises in his campaign speech.
- The constant design of both these orators, in all their speeches, was to drive some one particular point.
4.A dialect, vernacular, or (dated) a language.
- 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.
1.To make (a speech); to harangue.
- I'll speech against peace while Dismal's my name, / And be a true whig, while I'm Not-in-game.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1044
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Uncommon
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Uncommon
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Synonyms
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”).