speech

noun
/spiːt͡ʃ/

The ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.

Example

“He had a bad speech impediment.”

Other meanings

The act of speaking, a certain style of it.
“It was hard to hear his speech over the noise.”
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.”

Synonyms

address

Related words

acceptance speech
antispeech
avoidance speech
by-speech
caretaker speech
child-directed speech
compelled speech
co-speech
counterspeech
cyberspeech
endspeech
figure of speech

Example sentences

“Free speech is not freedom from social consequences.”
Tatoeba · shekitten · CC0
“It's the most important speech of my life.”
Tatoeba · Miktsoanit · CC0

Word history

From Old English "spǣċ".

Where this comes from

This definition is adapted from “speech” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.