speech – English noun declension

English noun forms of speech

Noun: speech
Singularspeech
Pluralspeeches

Sample Sentences

  • He had a bad speech impediment.
  • After the accident she lost her speech.
  • All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion[…] such talk had been distressingly out of place. [1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:]
  • I was at liberty to attend to Wilbert, who I could see desired speech with me. […] As far as Bobbie and I were concerned, silence reigned, this novel twist in the scenario having wiped speech from our lips, as the expression is, but Phyllis continued vocal. […] For perhaps a quarter of a minute after he had passed from the scene the aged relative stood struggling for utterance. At the end of this period she found speech. “Of all the damn silly fatheaded things!” [1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “XV AND XVIII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:]
  • It was hard to hear his speech over the noise.
  • Her speech was soft and lilting.
  • 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:]
  • 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:]
  • He's going to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. 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. I believe he's a very fine speaker. His only trouble is that he's stymied unless he has his speech with him and can read it. Calls it referring to his notes. […] “So that's why he's been going about looking like a dead fish. I suppose Roberta broke the engagement?” “In a speech lasting five minutes without a pause for breath.” [1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “I AND XII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:]
  • 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:]
  • This word is mostly used in speech.
  • 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), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-West Germanic *sprākī
3. Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
4. Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂
5. Proto-Germanic *-ō
6. Proto-West Germanic *-u
7. Proto-West Germanic *sprāku
8. Old English sprǣċ
9. Old English spǣċ
10. Middle English speche
11. English speech
12. 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. See: Middle English Nouns 'speche', Dutch Nouns 'spraak', German Nouns 'Sprache'.

Verbs referencing "speech"

Dutch Nouns speech, German Nouns Sprache, Russian Nouns спич.