Link Centre Dictionary

speech

UK/spiːt͡ʃ/ US/spiːt͡ʃ/ common

noun

1.

the act of delivering a formal spoken communication to an audience

  • “he listened to an address on minor Roman poets”
Synonyms
2.

(language) communication by word of mouth

  • “his speech was garbled”
  • “he uttered harsh language”
  • “he recorded the spoken language of the streets”
Synonyms
3.

something spoken

  • “he could hear them uttering merry speeches”
4.

the exchange of spoken words

  • “they were perfectly comfortable together without speech”
5.

your characteristic style or manner of expressing yourself orally

  • “his manner of speaking was quite abrupt”
  • “her speech was barren of southernisms”
  • “I detected a slight accent in his speech”
Synonyms
6.

a lengthy rebuke

  • “a good lecture was my father”
  • “;”
Synonyms
7.

words making up the dialogue of a play

  • “the actor forgot his speech”
Synonyms
8.

the mental faculty or power of vocal communication

  • “language sets homo sapiens apart from all other animals”
Synonyms

Origin

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”).

Phrases

  • acceptance speech
  • avoidance speech
  • caretaker speech
  • child-directed speech
  • compelled speech
  • figure of speech
  • finger speech
  • free as in speech

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Parts

Part of

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.