1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. speech

Find the word definition

What is "speech"

Crossword clues for speech

speech
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
speech
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a passionate speech
▪ Senator McCarthy delivered a powerful and passionate speech.
a speech defect (=an incorrect way of saying certain sounds)
▪ He had a speech defect which made it quite difficult to understand him.
a speech of welcome
▪ The Mayor made a brief speech of welcome.
a speech pattern
▪ Computers are now able to produce acceptable speech patterns.
direct speech
figure of speech
free speech
▪ We would all support the principle of free speech.
freedom of speech/expression (=the legal right to say what you want)
▪ We will defend freedom of speech and oppose censorship.
give a talk/speech/lecture
▪ He’s giving a talk on early Roman pottery.
impromptu speech/party/meeting etc
▪ The band gave an impromptu concert.
indirect speech
keynote speech/address/lecture etc
▪ He is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at an awards ceremony.
part of speech
reported speech
slur your words/speech
▪ She was slurring her words as if she was drunk.
speech day
speech impediment
▪ a speech impediment
speech impediment
speech marks
speech synthesizer
speech therapy
the power of speech
▪ I was so surprised that I momentarily lost the power of speech.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
free
▪ Strauss alleged that this was an infringement of his absolute privilege of free speech and as such was a contempt of Parliament.
▪ Limitations on rights Articles 19 and 20 allow certain limitations to be placed on the right of free speech.
▪ In my view the appellant's argument founded on free speech is without merit.
▪ We support free speech and all.
▪ The hostile reception of Alford's views led him to reflect that he was being denied the parliamentary right of free speech.
▪ The flag nonsense violates First Amendment free speech protections.
▪ What is disturbing is that it is typical of a new intolerance against whistle-blowers that raises serious questions about free speech.
▪ This has become almost as sacred as the first amendment right of free speech.
long
▪ Before the guillotine motion, the longest speech in those proceedings was by the then Minister of State.
▪ Each board member gave a long speech, and some gave two.
▪ Note: This does not mean monopolizing the tutorial with long speeches.
▪ He made a long, rambling speech to Republicans across town about drugs and diabetes, rape and morality.
▪ It was a long speech, too, by a politician who never pretended that speech-making was one of his top assets.
▪ There is no need to make a long speech, though.
▪ It had been a day of long speeches and waiting, and the crowd of forty thousand people was restless.
maiden
▪ Al Gore falls asleep as he makes maiden speech as Vice-President; no-one notices - they're all asleep too.
▪ One of the startling omissions from the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh was any mention of Teesside development corporation.
▪ I was making my maiden speech, which is traditionally a somewhat nerve-wracking experience.
▪ But for a maiden speech, by tradition, everyone keeps absolutely silent and no one is allowed to interrupt.
▪ Or to congratulate me on my maiden speech?
▪ She told him that it was her intention to make her maiden speech at the conference.
major
▪ In a recent major speech, Mbeki cautioned that national transformation and democratic stability were far from assured.
▪ A major speech had to be delivered.
▪ In recent months he has made two major speeches in Parliament on the subject.
▪ He was planning later in the week to make three major speeches, and he would need to conserve his energy.
▪ In the midst of his Abdication preoccupations Baldwin made one major speech on another subject.
union
▪ Clinton, in his election-year State of the Union speech, resurrected some of the middle-class themes of his 1992 campaign.
▪ Clinton is expected to address budget issues in his State of the Union speech Tuesday, and he presents his budget Thursday.
▪ State of the Union speeches are mandated by the Constitution.
▪ Never had a president heard an opposition speaker following his State of the Union speech.
▪ Indeed the Republican response was far warmer than perhaps any of his previous four State of the Union speeches.
■ NOUN
acceptance
▪ His acceptance speech, made on the following evening, was well delivered but generally perceived as lacking in detail.
▪ In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Claude Simon also considered marginalized writing to be subverting totalitarian political control at least implicitly.
▪ Both Dole and Kemp will be officially nominated Wednesday night and will deliver their acceptance speeches Thursday night.
▪ Still, it was superior to the acceptance speech delivered by Clinton two weeks later in Chicago.
▪ Although Dole began working on his acceptance speech in the spring, he was making changes as late as last night.
community
▪ But in previously unexplored speech communities, we do not have reliable social intuitions either.
▪ This resentment of others' rejection of our kind of talk is found in speech communities everywhere.
▪ At this superficial level, different kinds of speech community shape can be readily distinguished.
▪ Hence, for example, in Habermas it is a speech community which reflects through language primarily on social or ethical norms.
▪ In mastering word meanings, children must learn the conventional meanings they carry within the speech community.
impediment
▪ I kept silent, thinking that he might have an embarrassing speech impediment.
▪ He also had a speech impediment.
▪ Communicating: problems experienced by handicapped people or those suffering from lack of confidence or a speech impediment. 9.
▪ A speech impediment did nothing to stop him from preaching.
▪ He had a nervous twitch and a speech impediment.
keynote
▪ This report contains three keynote speeches on commissioning, carrying out and disseminating research.
▪ The conventioneers did not care that her 30-minute keynote speech was largely nonpartisan.
▪ Mr Kinnock intends to reinforce his conviction that Labour is in a position to win in his keynote speech tomorrow.
▪ Vice President Al Gore will be on hand to give a keynote speech.
▪ Susan Molinari of New York, who will deliver the keynote speech.
▪ Jobs and his onetime partner Steve Wozniak are scheduled to join Amelio on-stage during his keynote speech.
recognition
▪ Jelinek took individual words as the states in his Markov model for speech recognition.
▪ Continuous speech recognition and synthesis are additional examples of tasks neural networks are undertaking with reasonable success.
▪ Despite a large amount of research into automatic speech recognition the results have been unimpressive.
▪ Areas such as vision, continuous speech recognition and synthesis, and machine learning have been hard.
▪ A commonly used argument in favour of speech recognition is that it is the most natural communication medium.
▪ Possible applications are continuous speech recognition and commands to robot arms.
▪ Our first aim was to examine the lexical access components of a number of existing speech recognition systems.
▪ What you hear will incorporate high-fidelity sound, speech synthesis, and speech recognition.
therapy
▪ They combined domestic, personal care, and specialist skills, taught by other professionals, such as physiotherapy, or speech therapy.
▪ I was never in speech therapy.
▪ For the past 18 months Norman has had intense physiotherapy and speech therapy to maximise the use of muscles he can move.
▪ Mthough there is some evidence that this recovery is hastened by speech therapy, it may also occur without any therapy.
▪ Additional physiotherapy, occupational and speech therapy services.
▪ Because of his language difficulties, his kindergarten teacher had quickly referred him for speech therapy to help him articulate certain sounds.
▪ After the surgery Donal had speech therapy and felt able to do some work.
■ VERB
deliver
▪ In 1782 he had delivered a pretty effective speech in the legislature at Boston against ratification of the Consular Convention.
▪ John delivered a funny little speech.
▪ Fidel Castro delivering speeches in the fields and plazas.
▪ They campaigned for Hardaway while the Adelman ticket delivered a persuasive stump speech.
▪ After receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, she delivered her speech in a mature and confident manner.
▪ Susan Molinari of New York, who will deliver the keynote speech.
give
▪ They also appear slightly more confident and enjoy leading groups, giving speeches and presentations.
▪ Government officials do not have to give speeches to business leaders telling them that it is important to export.
▪ Mr Baldwin, the Prime Minister, who was there, also gave a speech.
▪ Each board member gave a long speech, and some gave two.
▪ I've never given a speech in my life before.
▪ Pete Magowan should have brought Clark back to give stump speeches about the horrors of Candlestick.
▪ Over the intro Gary would always give his little speech, very quietly - almost to himself.
▪ Then she throws it out and keeps just an outline in front of her when she gives the actual speech.
hear
▪ The Cabinet as a whole will have to wait until Wednesday morning to hear about the Budget speech.
▪ A visit from you without hearing you give a speech?
▪ It seemed that he had not heard Garland's little speech but his gaze came round eventually.
▪ Did you hear that speech tonight?
▪ You don't want all the wedding party to have heard the speech in advance of the wedding.
▪ The journalists, many of whom had heard the speech before, paced in the background waiting for something new.
▪ We speak as we hear speech.
▪ Many women who heard her speech got tested for the virus and became active in promoting awareness about the disease.
make
▪ He came over and pushed for McGovern to our delegation and made a big speech about what a great guy Daley was.
▪ The chief bridesmaid, if she is not making a speech, can then lead the call for a speech.
▪ The President, therefore, should journey somewhere to make his foreign-policy speech on that date.
▪ I had to make a speech which a priest translated into Sesotho.
▪ I am sure that he will seek to make his own speech in the debate.
▪ Twenty-four backbenchers took part in the debate, most of them making speeches opposed to the Bill.
▪ Rose made a front-of-curtain speech begging the audience's indulgence.
write
▪ But he goes back a lot further - writing key speeches in Number Ten during the Heath government two decades ago.
▪ But in her writing and speeches Shaughnessy did not dwell on this problem; perhaps that was a necessary part of salesmanship.
▪ I just think that you're wasting your time writing letters, making speeches, sending out all those pamphlets.
▪ Sartain said she writes out a new speech word for word and then types it herself.
▪ He had wanted to be alone while he wrote tomorrow's vital speech to the Conservative conference.
▪ Some one to write speeches and type correspondence.
▪ She has probably written her speech already, but I hope that she will include these points in her reply.
▪ He is too young to have covered Kennedy, but he wrote speeches for President Carter and is a certified political junkie.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
compose a letter/poem/speech etc
▪ His movements were slow, his gaze abstracted, as if he were composing a poem in his head.
▪ Me and my sore back composed a letter to Martina.
▪ Presumably Mira is composing a poem, counting the syllables as she walks.
▪ She began to compose a letter in her head, then rejected the idea.
▪ The trainee is expected to compose a letter and a memo from short notes provided.
▪ Then he turned over the piece of paper and composed a letter to his wife, Olga.
deliver a speech/lecture/address etc
▪ All the staff of the company director delivered a speech.
▪ But the spectre of delivering a speech brown-nosing the teachers jammed her imagination.
▪ Fidel Castro delivering speeches in the fields and plazas.
▪ It wasn't Rudy intention to play the role of the Gipper or deliver an address like Lincoln at Gettysburg.
▪ Mr Delors was at the London School of Economics, less than a mile away, delivering a lecture.
maiden speech
▪ Al Gore falls asleep as he makes maiden speech as Vice-President; no-one notices - they're all asleep too.
▪ But for a maiden speech, by tradition, everyone keeps absolutely silent and no one is allowed to interrupt.
▪ I was making my maiden speech, which is traditionally a somewhat nerve-wracking experience.
▪ One of the startling omissions from the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh was any mention of Teesside development corporation.
▪ Or to congratulate me on my maiden speech?
▪ She told him that it was her intention to make her maiden speech at the conference.
speech recognition
▪ A commonly used argument in favour of speech recognition is that it is the most natural communication medium.
▪ Areas such as vision, continuous speech recognition and synthesis, and machine learning have been hard.
▪ Continuous speech recognition and synthesis are additional examples of tasks neural networks are undertaking with reasonable success.
▪ Despite a large amount of research into automatic speech recognition the results have been unimpressive.
▪ Indeed, in the later chapters we will show that this is impractical for any relatively unconstrained speech recognition system.
▪ Noisy Environments: speech recognition is made difficult if interference is created by noisy machinery or extraneous conversations.
▪ Possible applications are continuous speech recognition and commands to robot arms.
▪ What you hear will incorporate high-fidelity sound, speech synthesis, and speech recognition.
stump speech/speaker
▪ Clinton does not include his pro-choice stand in his standard stump speech, either.
▪ Confronted by the realities of office, even young men forget the carefree promises of the stump speech.
▪ His strident 30-minute stump speech was interrupted only a couple of times with polite applause.
▪ No soap box, no stump speech, no calling out, in a beer-barrel voice, to hit the bricks.
▪ Pete Magowan should have brought Clark back to give stump speeches about the horrors of Candlestick.
▪ They campaigned for Hardaway while the Adelman ticket delivered a persuasive stump speech.
▪ Voinovich, 59, is described as a roll-up-the-sleeves fiscal manager and a good stump speaker.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a wedding speech
▪ Her speech was slow and distinct.
▪ His speech was slurred and he was having trouble standing straight.
▪ In her speech, Bauer proposed major changes in the welfare system.
▪ Natalie was born with a slight speech impediment.
▪ She left early to write her speech for the next day.
▪ The left side of the brain controls speech.
▪ The senator's speech on farm subsidies did not attract a large audience.
▪ To start with, the governor made a short speech welcoming the visiting dignitaries.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And there had to be freedom of speech and publication, for without these the freedom of association is of no use.
▪ Because of its application to both speech and writing it has helped to obscure the difference between the two.
▪ For him, it was a speech.
▪ His deafness was a severe handicap in an assembly where quickness of hearing and readiness of speech were essential.
▪ Ingram reported that for children with phonological disorders, imitation tasks lead to fewer errors compared to spontaneous speech.
▪ Only when the speech had turned Jeffries into a disastrous image problem had the university acted.
▪ The most significant aspect of my hon. Friend's speech was the reference to his predecessor, George Buckley.
▪ What you hear will incorporate high-fidelity sound, speech synthesis, and speech recognition.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Speech

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

Speech

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.

    There is none comparable to the variety of instructive expressions by speech, wherewith man alone is endowed for the communication of his thoughts.
    --Holder.

  2. he act of speaking; that which is spoken; words, as expressing ideas; language; conversation.

    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.

    O goode God! how gentle and how kind Ye seemed by your speech and your visage The day that maked was our marriage.
    --Chaucer.

    The acts of God . . . to human ears Can nort without process of speech be told.
    --Milton.

  3. A particular language, as distinct from others; a tongue; a dialect.

    People of a strange speech and of an hard language.
    --Ezek. iii. 6.

  4. Talk; mention; common saying.

    The duke . . . did of me demand What was the speech among the Londoners Concerning the French journey.
    --Shak.

  5. formal discourse in public; oration; harangue.

    The constant design of these orators, in all their speeches, was to drive some one particular point.
    --Swift.

  6. ny declaration of thoughts.

    I. with leave of speech implored, . . . replied.
    --Milton.

    Syn: Syn. Harangue; language; address; oration. See Harangue, and Language.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
speech

Old English spæc "act of speaking; power of speaking; manner of speaking; statement, discourse, narrative, formal utterance; language," variant of spræc, from Proto-Germanic *sprek-, *spek- (cognates: Danish sprog, Old Saxon spraca, Old Frisian spreke, Dutch spraak, Old High German sprahha, German Sprache "speech;" see speak (v.))\n

\nThe spr- forms were extinct in English by 1200. Meaning "address delivered to an audience" first recorded 1580s.\n\nAnd I honor the man who is willing to sink\n
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,\n
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,\n
Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak,\n
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,\n
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.\n
\n

[James Russell Lowell, "A Fable for Critics," 1848]

Related phrases:
Wiktionary
speech

n. (label en uncountable) The faculty of uttering articulate sounds or words; the ability to speak or to use vocalizations to communicate.

Related phrases:
WordNet
speech

  1. n. 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]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Speech (rapper)

Todd Thomas (born October 25, 1968), better known by the stage name Speech, is an American rapper and musician. He is a member of the progressive hip hop group Arrested Development and has released a number of solo albums.

Speech (disambiguation)

Speech is the vocal form of human communication.

Speech or speaking may also refer to:

  • Spoken language
  • Animal language, forms of animal communication that are considered to show similarities to human language
    • Talking animal or speaking animal, any non-human animal which produces sounds or gestures resembling those of a human
  • Connected speech in linguistics, a continuous sequence of sounds forming utterances or conversations in spoken language
  • Public speaking, a process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner
  • Speech imitation, the saying by one individual of the spoken vocalizations made by another individual
  • Speech synthesis, the artificial production of human speech language
  • Right speech, a component of the Noble Eightfold Path in Buddhism
  • as a proper name
    • Speech (rapper) (born 1968), an American rapper and musician
    • Speech Debelle (born 1983), a British rapper and Mercury Prize winner
Speech

'''Speech ''' is the vocalized form of communication based upon the syntactic combination of lexicals and names that are drawn from very large (usually about 1,000 different words) vocabularies. Each spoken word is created out of the phonetic combination of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech sound units. These vocabularies, the syntax which structures them, and their set of speech sound units differ, creating the existence of many thousands of different types of mutually unintelligible human languages. Most human speakers are able to communicate in two or more of them, hence being polyglots. The vocal abilities that enable humans to produce speech also provide humans with the ability to sing.

A gestural form of human communication exists for the deaf in the form of sign language. Speech in some cultures has become the basis of a written language, often one that differs in its vocabulary, syntax and phonetics from its associated spoken one, a situation called diglossia. Speech in addition to its use in communication, it is suggested by some psychologists such as Vygotsky is internally used by mental processes to enhance and organize cognition in the form of an interior monologue.

Speech is researched in terms of the speech production and speech perception of the sounds used in vocal language. Other research topics concern speech repetition, the ability to map heard spoken words into the vocalizations needed to recreate them, that plays a key role in the vocabulary expansion in children and speech errors. Several academic disciplines study these including acoustics, psychology, speech pathology, linguistics, cognitive science, communication studies, otolaryngology and computer science. Another area of research is how the human brain in its different areas such as the Broca's area and Wernicke's area underlies speech.

It is controversial how far human speech is unique in that animals also communicate with vocalizations. While none in the wild have compatibly large vocabularies, research upon the nonverbal abilities of language trained apes such as Washoe and Kanzi raises the possibility that they might have these capabilities. The origins of speech are unknown and subject to much debate and speculation.

Speech (album)

Speech was the fourth (and final) album of the British blues-rock band Steamhammer.

In 1971, bassist Steve Davy left the band, and Louis Cennamo was recruited as his replacement - then vocalist Kieran White also left the band after a summer tour. Guitarist Martin Pugh, drummer Mick Bradley and Cennamo (with guest vocalist Garth Watt-Roy, of Fuzzy Duck) then went in the studio to record "Speech", which was released in 1972. It consisted of three lengthy (and mostly instrumental) songs in a heavier progressive-rock vein, that was somewhat different from their initial blues and folk/jazz-influenced albums.

Bradley died from leukemia shortly before the album's mixing was completed (the album is dedicated to him on the inside album cover), and the band dissolved the following year; making Speech their final album.

After Steamhammer wound down, Pugh and Cennamo joined up with former Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf (who had provided production assistance on "Speech", as well as contributing background vocals) and drummer Bobby Caldwell, formerly of Johnny Winter's band and Captain Beyond, to form Armageddon.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "speech".

It seemed the right time to bring the Levitt accounting speech to the attention of the directors.

Assorted Alliteration Annexe, the superior sellers of stressed syllable or similar-sounding speech sequences since the sixteenth century.

I find he alluded to it in his speech here, as well as in the copyright essay.

I should have wished to have limited my story to Beaufort and his message, but as the council seemed to be intent upon hearing a full account of my journey, I told in as short and simple speech as I could the various passages which had befallen me--the ambuscado of the smugglers, the cave, the capture of the gauger, the journey in the lugger, the acquaintance with Farmer Brown, my being cast into prison, with the manner of my release and the message wherewith I had been commissioned.

In his speech he assigned the alteration of the currency as the chief cause of the calamity, since it operated injuriously on all classes except the fundholder and annuitant, and by its ruinous effects on private contracts, as well as public payments, was calculated to endanger all kinds of property.

Gavin backed away from the groupritual, hearing fragments of speech and antiphonal response as he went.

Admetus, whose speeches fall into the rhythm of a Funeral March, and the Chorus, who speak in Strophes and Antistrophes of more elaborate lyric rhythm, often interrupted by the wails of Admetus.

However, that they hated long speeches, the following apophthegms are a farther proof.

They came by rote, a platitude from this speech of long ago, a banality from yesterday, a quotation, an apothegm, a joke.

Religious proclamations, stentorian speeches by assorted politicians who could not tell a spiral galaxy from a supernova.

His ungrammatical French was the fluidly sloppy get-along speech of an Anglophone who has made his home among French-speakers for a few months, not the half-African patois of the slave quarters.

The Helmet Men, seemingly astounded by what had taken place, exchanged quiet comments in their strange barking speech, and began to draw back behind the safety of their gigantic animals.

Listening to the speech from the bridge of his own ballista, Primero Quentin Butler nodded.

I think if he had been in his sober senses he would not have risked that barefacedness in the presence of thousands of his own friends who knew that I made speeches within six of the seven days at Henry, Marshall County, Augusta, Hancock County, and Macomb, McDonough County, including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport at the end of the six days.

Whoever will read his Basilicon Doron, particularly the two last books, the true law of free monarchies, his answer to Cardinal Perron, and almost all his speeches and messages to parliament, will confess him to have possessed no mean genius.