Speech Gave Language People Made Delivered Spiːtʃ Deliver

• several people made speeches at the wedding.
• she gave a rousing speech to the crowd.
• to deliver a speech on human rights
• he inspired everyone with a moving speech about tolerance and respect.

speech

Word Family

• speak verb
• speaker noun
• speech noun
• spoken adjective (≠ unspoken)
1. a formal talk that a person gives to an audience
• Several people made speeches at the wedding.
• She gave a rousing speech to the crowd.
• to deliver a speech on human rights
• He inspired everyone with a moving speech about tolerance and respect.
• In his acceptance speech, the actor thanked his family.

Extra Examples

• George Washington's inaugural speech
• He made a speech about workers of the world uniting.
• In a speech given last month, she hinted she would run for office.
• She delivered the keynote speech (= main general speech) at the conference.
• He wrote her party conference speech.
• His 20-minute speech was interrupted several times by booing.
• Her comments came ahead of a speech she will deliver on Thursday to business leaders.
• She concluded her speech by thanking the audience.
• He gave an impassioned speech broadcast nationwide.
• We heard a speech by the author.
• This is very unexpected—I haven't prepared a speech.
• The guest speaker is ill so I have to do the opening speech.
• He read his speech from a prompter.
• the farewell speech given by George Washington
• He made the comments in a nationally televised speech.
• During his victory speech the President paid tribute to his defeated opponent.
• In his concession speech, he urged his supporters to try to work with Republicans.
• The Prime Minister addressed the nation in a televised speech.
• He delivered his final speech to Congress.
• He delivered the commencement speech at Notre Dame University.
• His speech was broadcast on national radio.
• In her speech to the House of Commons, she outlined her vision of Britain in the 21st century.
• President Bush delivered his 2004 State of the Union speech.
• She gave a speech on the economy.
• She made a stirring campaign speech on improving the lot of the unemployed.
• The President will deliver a major foreign-policy speech to the United Nations.
• The candidates gave their standard stump speeches (= political campaign speeches).
• The prizewinner gave an emotional acceptance speech.
• a Senate floor speech
• her maiden speech (= her first) in the House of Commons
• the Chancellor's Budget speech
• the Prime Minister's speech-writers
• She's been asked to give the after-dinner speech.
• You will need to prepare an acceptance speech.
• a political speech writer
2. the language used when speaking; the fact of speaking rather than writing
• SEE ALSO direct speech
  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/direct-speech
• This expression is used mainly in speech, not in writing.
• a defence of free speech (= the right to say openly what you think)
• speech sounds

Extra Examples

• the use of language in everyday speech
• The kids pepper their speech with a lot of slang and terms from social media.
• the difficulties of transcribing conversational speech
• Computer-generated speech has become significantly more intelligible and naturalistic.
• The poems are delivered in a style between speech and song.
• Improvements in speech recognition have produced digital assistants that can respond to spoken commands.
• A blind user can 'read' a newspaper using a Braille display or speech synthesizer.
• Her singing style is close to the natural rhythms of everyday speech.
• the speech rhythms of the Polish language
• He learned to successfully mimic American speech patterns.
• birds that mimic the intonations of human speech
• They were able to communicate without speech.
• In English, a letter does not always represent the same speech sound.
• Speech codes have been instituted by some universities (= to stop language that is sexist, racist, etc.).
• The country continues to suppress free speech and censor the internet.
• When the government restricts speech, this may be a violation of the First Amendment.
• racist hate speech
3. the ability to speak
• I seemed to have lost the power of speech.
• a speech impediment
• The child was referred to a speech therapist.

Extra Examples

• He temporarily lost the power of speech after the accident.
• It's a story about a kid who loses his powers of sight, hearing and speech.
• a child who has problems with speech and language
• a speech and language therapist
• Because of his difficulties with speech, people thought he had learning disabilities and treated him accordingly.
• the development of speech in humans
• Symptoms may include visual and speech impairment.
• She goes to a special school for the speech and hearing impaired.
• Most people have speech, but significantly fewer have writing.
4. the way in which a particular person speaks
• SEE ALSO caretaker speech
  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/caretaker-speech
• Her speech was slurred—she was clearly drunk.
• Clear speech with crisp consonant sounds is very important.

Extra Examples

• She could tell by his slurred speech that he had been drinking.
• She was slurring her speech.
• I find his speech very hard to understand.
• I don't like it when people correct my speech.
• His speech was incoherent, responding to questions that had not been asked.
• In halting speech, she began to tell her story.
• She has a very idiosyncratic style of speech.
5. a group of lines that an actor speaks in a play in the theatre
• She has the longest speech in the play.

Word Origin

• Old English sprǣc, sprēc, later spēc, of West Germanic origin: related to Dutch spraak, German Sprache, also to speak.