soliloquy
Syllables: so·lil·o·quy/səˈlɪləkwi/
soliloquy noun: the act of a character speaking to themselves so as to reveal their thoughts to the audience.
Noun
soliloquy (countable and uncountable, plural soliloquies)
- The act of a character speaking to themselves so as to reveal their thoughts to the audience.
- At the end of the second act the main villain gave a soliloquy detailing his plans to attack the protagonist.
- Yet if I were to say […] that Hamlet's soliloquy had been much over-rated, it would not be said, on this account, that I was unable to appreciate Shakespeare.1901, Edmund Selous, Bird Watching, J.M. Dent & Co, London, Chapter XII: Watching Blackbirds, Nightingales, Sand-martins, etc., page 315
- A speech or written discourse in this form.
- The feeling of Singleton's bosom grew heightened in its tone of melancholy, and a more passionate emphasis of thought broke forth in his half-muttered soliloquy:— ¶"How I remember as I look […]1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XI, page 135
- Here is a very over-simplified example, this time expressed in the form of a subjective soliloquy rather than a computer simulation.1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Kindle edition, OUP Oxford, published 2016, page 126
- Synonyms:
- monologue
Verb
soliloquy (third-person singular simple present soliloquies, present participle soliloquying or soliloquing, simple past and past participle soliloquied)
- To issue a soliloquy.
- Synonyms:
- soliloquize
soliloquy meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
soliloquy in Urdu
- خودکلامی
soliloquy in Bengali
- স্বগতোক্তি, নিজের মনে কথা বলা
soliloquy in Malayalam
- ആത്മഗതഭാഷണം
soliloquy in Kannada
- ತನ್ನೊಂದಿಗೆ ಆಡು, ಒಂಟಿಮಾತು, ಸ್ವಗತ ಭಾಷಣ, ಆತ್ಮಗತವಾದ ಮಾತು, ತನ್ನಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೆ ತಾನು ಆಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಮಾತು, ಸ್ವಗತ
More languagesFewer languages
- soliloquy in Indonesian
- senandika, solilokui
Synonyms of soliloquy
Antonyms
Forms of soliloquy
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | soliloquies |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | soliloquies |
| present participle | soliloquying |
| present participle | soliloquing |
| past participle | soliloquied |
| past | soliloquied |
Origin of soliloquy
1595–1605; From Late Latin sōliloquium in the title of St. Augustine's Soliloquiorum libri duo ("Two Books of Soliloquies"), from sōlus (“only, sole”) + loquor (“to speak”).
Words formed from soliloquy
Questions about soliloquy
- What does soliloquy mean?
- Soliloquy means the act of a character speaking to themselves so as to reveal their thoughts to the audience.
- What is soliloquy in Urdu?
- Soliloquy in Urdu is خودکلامی. See Soliloquy meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is soliloquy?
- Soliloquy can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce soliloquy?
- Soliloquy is pronounced /səˈlɪləkwi/.
- What is the plural of soliloquy?
- The plural of soliloquy is soliloquies.
Words near soliloquy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: soliloquy (page history and authors); soliloquy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soliloquy (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soliloquy (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soliloquy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-soliloquy.ogg, en-au-soliloquy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “soliloquy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soliloquy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.