speech
/spiːt͡ʃ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Early/spiːt͡ʃ/
speech noun: the ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.
Noun
speech (countable and uncountable, plural speeches)
- 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.
- The act of speaking, a certain style of it.
- It was hard to hear his speech over the noise.
- Her speech was soft and lilting.
- 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.1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman
- Synonyms:
- address, allocution, monologue, oration, soliloquy
- A dialect, vernacular, or (dated) a language.
- For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 3:6
- 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.1542, Andrew Boorde, The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge
- Language used orally, rather than in writing.
- This word is mostly used in speech.
- An utterance that is quoted; see direct speech, reported speech
- Public talk, news, gossip, rumour.
- The duke[…]did of me demand / What was the speech among the Londoners / Concerning the French journey.1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
Verb
speech (third-person singular simple present speeches, present participle speeching, simple past and past participle speeched)
- 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.1711 [December?] (date written), Jonathan Swift, “An Excellent New Song. Being the Intended Speech of a Famous Orator against Peace [i.e., Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham].”, in Thomas Sheridan...
- So to Speeching he did go, / And like a Man of Senſe, / He certainly ſaid Ay or No,1731, The Statesman: A New Court Ballad, page 7
speech meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
speech in Hindi
- vocal communication
- उक्ति ukti, बात bāt, बातचीत bātcīt, बोल bol, तक़रीर taqrīr
- an oration, session of speaking
- भाषण bhāṣaṇ, तक़रीर taqrīr
speech in Tamil
- பேச்சு, உரை, சொற்பொழிவு
speech in Marathi
- speech; articulate utterance
- वाचा vācā
- speech; articulate utterance, or the faculty, or the divinity governing it
- वाणी vāṇī
speech in Urdu
- vocal communication
- تَقْرِیر taqrīr, گُفْتار guftār, سُخَن suxan, بھاشَن bhāśan, بات bāt, بات چِیت bāt cīt
- an oration, session of speaking
- تَقْرِیر taqrīr, نُطْق nutq
More languagesFewer languages
- speech in Bengali
- কথা kotha, বাক bak, জবান joban, বক্তৃতা boktrita
- speech in Telugu
- ఉపన్యాసం upanyāsaṁ
- speech in Malayalam
- സംസാരം saṁsāraṁ, പ്രസംഗം prasaṅgaṁ
- speech in Kannada
- ವಚನ vacana, ನಾಲಗೆ nālage
- speech in Punjabi
- ਭਾਸ਼ਣ
- speech in Gujarati
- વાણી, ભાષણ
- speech in Odia
- ବଚନ bacana, କଥା kathā, ମୁହଁ muhã
- speech in Sanskrit
- वाद vāda
- speech in Nepali
- भाषण
- speech in Pashto
- مقاله maqālá
- speech in Arabic
- حَدِيث ḥadīṯ, خُطْبَة ḵuṭba, كَلَام kalām, قَوْل qawl
- speech in Malay
- ucapan
- speech in Indonesian
- pidato
- speech in Thai
- คำพูด kam-pûut, ถ้อย tɔ̂i, พาท pâat, วจนะ wá-jà-ná
- speech in Vietnamese
- lời nói, ngôn từ, chúc từ
Examples of speech in a sentence
- Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- At the end of this period she found speech.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “XV AND XVIII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
- 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.2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2014:
- We've been caught short as usual, and somebody has got to make a speech on ideals and the great world outside to those blasted boys, so he fits in nicely.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “I AND XII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
Synonyms of speech
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of speech
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | speeches |
| alternative form (obsolete) | speach |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | speeches |
| present participle | speeching |
| past participle | speeched |
| past | speeched |
Origin of speech
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”). Cognate with Dutch spraak (“speech”), German Sprache (“language, speech”). More at speak.
Words formed from speech
- bespeech
- acceptance speech
- antispeech
- avoidance speech
- by-speech
- caretaker speech
- child-directed speech
- compelled speech
- co-speech
- counterspeech
- cyberspeech
- endspeech
- figure of speech
- finger speech
- free as in speech
- freedom of speech
- free indirect speech
- free speech
- free speech zone
- furspeech
- hate-speech
- hate speech
- helium speech
- impulsive speech
- indirect speech
- keynote speech
- King's speech
- liberty of speech
- maiden speech
- midspeech
- misspeech
- nonspeech
- oblique speech
- opening speech
- part of speech
- plain speech
- prespeech
- pressure of speech
- protospeech
- Queen's speech
- running speech
- second-hand speech
- speech act
- speech balloon
- speech-based picking
- speech bubble
- speech community
- speechcraft
- speech-crier
- speech day
- speech disfluency
- speech disorder
- speecher
- speech fright
- speechfright
- speech from the throne
- speechful
- speechie
- speechification
- speechify
Phrases with speech
- speech tag
- speech way
- uwu speech
- speech acts
- speech days
- speech mark
- speech path
- speech tags
- speech time
- speech ways
- twin speech
- Black Speech
34 more phrasesFewer phrases
- speech marks
- speech paths
- speech times
- stump speech
- direct speech
- throne speech
- speech bubbles
- speech therapy
- Visible Speech
- parts of speech
- reported speech
- speech balloons
- symbolic speech
- pressured speech
- speech disorders
- speech therapies
- speech therapist
- figures of speech
- free speech zones
- speech impediment
- speech therapists
- speech communities
- speech impediments
- speech pathologist
- speech recognition
- after-dinner speech
- speech disfluencies
- speech pathologists
- speech act participant
- speech act participants
- speech is silver, silence is gold
- speech is silver, silence is golden
- time-assignment speech interpolation
- speech is silver, but silence is golden
Words that rhyme with speech
Questions about speech
- What does speech mean?
- Speech means the ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.
- What is speech in Hindi?
- Speech in Hindi is उक्ति (ukti), बात (bāt), बातचीत (bātcīt). See Speech meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use speech in a sentence?
- Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech.
- What part of speech is speech?
- Speech can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce speech?
- Speech is pronounced /spiːt͡ʃ/.
- What is the plural of speech?
- The plural of speech is speeches.
Words near speech in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: speech (page history and authors); speech (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); वाचा (Marathi) (page history and authors); ನಾಲಗೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); speech (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); speech (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); କଥା (Odia) (page history and authors); speech (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); مقاله (Pashto) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-speech.ogg.
Cite this entry: “speech.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/speech. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.