Speech

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Speech \Speech\, n. [OE. speche, AS. sp?c, spr?, fr. specan,
     sprecan, to speak; akin to D. spraak speech, OHG. spr[=a]hha,
     G. sprache, Sw. spr?k, Dan. sprog. See {Speak}.]
     1. The faculty of uttering articulate sounds or words; the
        faculty of expressing thoughts by words or articulate
        sounds; the power of speaking.


        [1913 Webster]
  
              There is none comparable to the variety of
              instructive expressions by speech, wherewith man
              alone is endowed for the communication of his
              thoughts.                             --Holder.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. he act of speaking; that which is spoken; words, as
        expressing ideas; language; conversation.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Speech is voice modulated by the throat, tongue, lips,
           etc., the modulation being accomplished by changing the
           form of the cavity of the mouth and nose through the
           action of muscles which move their walls.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 O goode God! how gentle and how kind
                 Ye seemed by your speech and your visage
                 The day that maked was our marriage. --Chaucer.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 The acts of God . . . to human ears
                 Can nort without process of speech be told.
                                                    --Milton.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A particular language, as distinct from others; a tongue;
        a dialect.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              People of a strange speech and of an hard language.
                                                    --Ezek. iii.
                                                    6.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. Talk; mention; common saying.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The duke . . . did of me demand
              What was the speech among the Londoners
              Concerning the French journey.        --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. formal discourse in public; oration; harangue.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The constant design of these orators, in all their
              speeches, was to drive some one particular point.
                                                    --Swift.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     6. ny declaration of thoughts.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              I. with leave of speech implored, . . . replied.
                                                    --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Syn. Harangue; language; address; oration. See
          {Harangue}, and {Language}.
          [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Speech \Speech\, v. i. & t.
     To make a speech; to harangue. [R.]
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  speech
       n 1: the act of delivering a formal spoken communication to an
            audience; "he listened to an address on minor Roman
            poets" [syn: {address}]
       2: (language) communication by word of mouth; "his speech was
          garbled"; "he uttered harsh language"; "he recorded the
          spoken language of the streets" [syn: {speech
          communication}, {spoken communication}, {spoken language},
           {language}, {voice communication}, {oral communication}]
       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" [syn: {manner of speaking}, {delivery}]
       6: a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of
          discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" [syn: {lecture},
           {talking to}]
       7: words making up the dialogue of a play; "the actor forgot
          his speech" [syn: {actor's line}, {words}]
       8: the mental faculty or power of vocal communication;
          "language sets homo sapiens apart from all other animals"
          [syn: {language}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  229 Moby Thesaurus words for "speech":
     ESP, address, after-dinner speech, alliteration, allocution,
     allusion, anacoluthon, anadiplosis, analogy, anaphora, anastrophe,
     answer, answering, antiphrasis, antithesis, antonomasia, apophasis,
     aporia, aposiopesis, apostrophe, articulated, articulation, blast,
     bull session, catachresis, chalk talk, chiasmus, chinfest,
     choice of words, circumlocution, climax, commerce, communicating,
     communication, communicational, communion, communional,
     composition, confab, confabulation, congress, connection, contact,
     conversation, conversational, converse, conversion, correspondence,
     dealing, dealings, debate, declamation, dialect, dialogue,
     diatribe, diction, discourse, disquisition, duologue, ecphonesis,
     elocution, emphasis, enunciated, enunciation, eulogy, exchange,
     exclamation, exhortation, expression, filibuster, forensic,
     forensic address, formal speech, formulation, funeral oration,
     gemination, grammar, harangue, homily, hortatory address,
     hypallage, hyperbaton, hyperbole, idiom, inaugural,
     inaugural address, information, interacting, interaction,
     interactional, interactive, interchange, intercommunication,
     intercommunicational, intercommunicative, intercommunion,
     intercommunional, intercourse, interplay, interresponsive,
     interrogative, interrogatory, invective, inversion, irony, jargon,
     jeremiad, language, langue, lecture, line, lingo, lingua, lingual,
     linguistic, linguistic intercourse, litotes, locution, malapropism,
     meiosis, message, metaphor, metonymy, nuncupative, onomatopoeia,
     oral, oral communication, oration, oxymoron, palaver, paregmenon,
     parenthesis, parlance, parley, parol, parole, pep talk,
     periphrasis, peroration, personal usage, personification,
     philippic, phrase, phraseology, phrasing, pitch, pleonasm,
     prepared speech, prepared text, preterition, prolepsis, pronounced,
     public speech, question-and-answer session, questioning, reading,
     recital, recitation, regression, repetition, reply, response,
     responsive, rhetoric, said, sales pitch, sales talk, salutatory,
     salutatory address, sarcasm, say, screed, sermon, set speech,
     simile, similitude, social intercourse, song and dance, sounded,
     speaking, speech circuit, speech situation, speechification,
     speeching, spiel, spoken, spoonerism, syllepsis, symploce,
     synecdoche, talk, talkathon, talkfest, talking, telepathic,
     telepathy, tirade, tongue, touch, traffic, transmissional,
     trialogue, truck, two-way communication, unwritten, usage,
     use of words, usus loquendi, utterance, uttered, valediction,
     valedictory, valedictory address, verbal, verbalization, verbiage,
     vernacular, viva voce, vocal, vocalization, vocalized, voice,
     voiced, voiceful, voicing, wordage, wording, words, zeugma
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  SPEECH. A formal discourse in public. 
       2. The liberty of speech is guaranteed to members of the legislature, 
  to counsel in court in debate. 
       3. The reduction of a speech to writing and its publication is a libel, 
  if the matter contained in it is libelous; and the repetition of it upon 
  occasions not warranted by law, when the matter is slanderous, will be 
  slander and. tho character of the speaker will be no protection to him from 
  an action. 1 M. & S. 273; 1 Esp. C. 226 Bouv. Inst. Index, h.t. See Debate; 
  Liberty of speech.