speak Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb express in speech
    verbalise; verbalize; mouth; utter; talk.
    • She talks a lot of nonsense
    • This depressed patient does not verbalize
  2. verb exchange thoughts; talk with
    talk.
    • We often talk business
    • Actions talk louder than words
  3. verb use language
    talk.
    • the baby talks already
    • the prisoner won't speak
    • they speak a strange dialect
  4. verb give a speech to
    address.
    • The chairman addressed the board of trustees
  5. verb make a characteristic or natural sound
    • The drums spoke

WordNet

Speak intransitive verb
Etymology
OE. speken, AS. specan, sprecan; akin to OF.ries. spreka, D. spreken, OS. spreken, G. sprechen, OHG. sprehhan, and perhaps to Skr. sph&umac;rj to crackle, to thunder. Cf. Spark of fire, Speech.
Wordforms
imperfect Spoke (Spake archaic); past participle Spoken (Spoke, obsolete ∨ Colloq ); present participle & verbal noun Speaking
Definitions
  1. To utter words or articulate sounds, as human beings; to express thoughts by words; as, the organs may be so obstructed that a man may not be able to speak.
    Till at the last spake in this manner. Chaucer.
    Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. 1 Sam. iii. 9.
  2. To express opinions; to say; to talk; to converse.
    That fluid substance in a few minutes begins to set, as the tradesmen speak. Boyle.
    An honest man, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. Shak.
    During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history. Macaulay.
  3. To utter a speech, discourse, or harangue; to adress a public assembly formally.
    Many of the nobility made themselves popular by speaking in Parliament against those things which were most grateful to his majesty. Clarendon.
  4. To discourse; to make mention; to tell.
    Lycan speaks of a part of Cæsar's army that came to him from the Leman Lake. Addison.
  5. To give sound; to sound.
    Make all our trumpets speak. Shak.
  6. To convey sentiments, ideas, or intelligence as if by utterance; as, features that speak of self-will.
    Thine eye begins to speak. Shak.
    Syn. -- To say; tell; talk; converse; discourse; articulate; pronounce; utter.
Speak transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To utter with the mouth; to pronounce; to utter articulately, as human beings.
    They sat down with him upn ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him. Job. ii. 13.
  2. To utter in a word or words; to say; to tell; to declare orally; as, to speak the truth; to speak sense.
  3. To declare; to proclaim; to publish; to make known; to exhibit; to express in any way.
    It is my father;s muste To speak your deeds. Shak.
    Speaking a still good morrow with her eyes. Tennyson.
    And for the heaven's wide circuit, let it speak The maker's high magnificence. Milton.
    Report speaks you a bonny monk. Sir W. Scott.
  4. To talk or converse in; to utter or pronounce, as in conversation; as, to speak Latin.
    And French she spake full fair and fetisely. Chaucer.
  5. To address; to accost; to speak to.
    [He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair. Ecclus. xiii. 6.
    each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan. Emerson.

Webster 1913