Link Centre Dictionary

say

UK/seɪ/ US/seɪ/ very common informal us
verb (11) noun (1)

verb

1.

express in words

  • “He said that he wanted to marry her”
  • “tell me what is bothering you”
  • “state your opinion”
  • “state your name”
Synonyms
2.

report or maintain

  • “He alleged that he was the victim of a crime”
  • “He said it was too late to intervene in the war”
  • “The registrar says that I owe the school money”
Synonyms
3.

express a supposition

  • “Let us say that he did not tell the truth”
  • “Let”
Synonyms
4.

have or contain a certain wording or form

  • “The passage reads as follows”
  • “What does the law say?”
Synonyms
5.

state as one''s opinion or judgement; declare

  • “I say let”
6.

utter aloud

  • “She said”
  • “to everyone in the office”
7.

give instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority

  • “I said to him to go home”
  • “She ordered him to do the shopping”
  • “The mother told the child to get dressed”
Synonyms
8.

speak, pronounce, or utter in a certain way

  • “She pronounces French words in a funny way”
  • “I cannot say”
  • “";”
Synonyms
9.

recite or repeat a fixed text

  • “Say grace”
  • “She said her”
  • “'”
10.

communicate or express nonverbally

  • “What does this painting say?”
  • “Did his face say anything about how he felt?”
11.

indicate

  • “The clock says noon”

noun

1.

the chance to speak

  • “let him have his say”

Origin

From Middle English saien, sain, san, secgan, segen, seien, sein, seiȝen, sugen, sægen, ziggen, from Old English seċġan, secgean, secggan, secggean, seggan, sæċġan (“to say, speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *saggjan, from Proto-Germanic *sagjaną (“to say”), from Proto-Indo-European *sokʷ-h₁-yé-, a suffixed o-grade form of *sekʷ- (“to say”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian sai, seede, sii, sjide, sooi, säie (“to say”), West Frisian sizze (“to say”), Alemannic German ŝchége, ŝchegi, séege, säge, sägä (“to say”), Bavarian sogn, soon, sågn (“to say”), Dutch zeggen (“to say”), German sagen (“to say”), Low German seggen (“to say, tell”), Luxembourgish soen (“to say”), Vilamovian ziöen, zuön, zuø̄n (“to say”), Yiddish זאָגן (zogn, “to say”), Danish sige (“to say”), Elfdalian saja (“to say”), Faroese siga (“to say”), Icelandic segja (“to say”), Jamtish segi (“to say”), Norwegian Bokmål si (“to say”), Norwegian Nynorsk segja, seia, seie (“to say, tell”), Scanian siğa (“to say”), Swedish säga (“to say”); also Cornish hwedhel (“narrative, story, tale”), Irish scéal (“story, tale”), Manx skeeal (“story; news; narrative”), Scottish Gaelic sgeul (“story, tale; information, news”), Welsh ...

Phrases

  • and so say all of us
  • as I was saying
  • as the saying goes
  • as they say
  • as who should say
  • before you can say Jack Robinson
  • before you can say knife
  • can we say
  • say again

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Related verbs

Entails

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.