Word.ws English Dictionary

speechifying

speechifying is the present participle and gerund of speechify.

Noun

speechifying (plural speechifyings)

  1. The art of making speeches; rhetoric or oratory.
  2. The act of speaking, especially at excessive length.
    • "I thank you," said Lorraine, "for reinforcing my favourite theory, which maintains that a love of talking is the great feature of the present time. Steam is not half so much its characteristic as speechifying."1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VIII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 174
    • “To literary readers, the books look cheesy, sexist in a hairy-chest, gold-chain kind of way. His [Robert Heinlein's] stuff hasn’t stood the test of time,” because of characters’ windy speechifying and their frontier optimism.2007 December 9, Scott Timberg, quoting Annalee Newitz, “The descent of a sci-fi guru”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 08 Aug 2020

Meaning of speechify

Verb

speechify (third-person singular simple present speechifies, present participle speechifying, simple past and past participle speechified)

  1. (intransitive) To give a speech; to hold forth; (now especially) to pronounce pompously or at length.
    • Caleb was a powerful man and knew little of any fear except the fear of hurting others and the fear of having to speechify.1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LVI, in Middlemarch […], volume III, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book VI, page 238
  2. (obsolete, possibly, transitive) To make speeches to (someone); to address in a speech.
    • They take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull.1864, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy

Forms of speechifying

pluralspeechifyings

Questions about speechifying

What does speechifying mean?
Speechifying means the art of making speeches; rhetoric or oratory.
What is speechifying the present participle and gerund of?
Speechifying is the present participle and gerund of speechify.
What part of speech is speechifying?
Speechifying is a noun.
What is the plural of speechifying?
The plural of speechifying is speechifyings.

Words near speechifying in the dictionary

  1. speechified
  2. speechifier
  3. speechifiers
  4. speechifies
  5. speechify
  6. speechifying
  7. speechifyings
  8. speeching
  9. speechings
  10. speechless
  11. speechlessly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: speechifying (page history and authors); speechify (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:

Cite this entry: “speechifying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/speechifying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.