Word Finder - speeches

definition

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

example

It was hard to hear the sounds of his speech over the noise. He had a bad speech impediment.

definition

A session of speaking, especially a long oral message given publicly by one person.

example

The candidate made some ambitious promises in his campaign speech.

definition

A style of speaking.

example

Her speech was soft and lilting.

definition

(grammar) Speech reported in writing; see direct speech, reported speech

definition

A dialect or language.

definition

Talk; mention; rumour.

definition

To make a speech; to harangue.

He published Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland (1852).

I had a splendid time; the toasts and speeches were great fun.

His speeches in the chamber were always eloquent and powerful.

Though not a great orator, his speeches were weighty and impressive.

Cobden's speeches were collected and published in 1870.

There is a valuable treatise on the life and speeches of Dinarchus by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

Sometimes defendants' speeches passed into literature, e.g.

The antagonism between free labour and slave labour became the theme of many of his speeches.

After the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, and in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly, but his speeches on behalf of the extreme socialist wing were of so abstract and mystical a character that they had no effect.

The only positive piece of evidence produced is the passage from Thomas Nash's "Epistle to the Gentlemen of the Two Universities," prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, 1859, in which he upbraids somebody (not known to be Shakespeare) with having left the "trade of Noverint" and busied himself with "whole Hamlets" and "handfuls of tragical speeches."

In his rare speeches in the House of Representatives he clearly defined his position in regard to states rights, which he consistently held ever afterwards.

By a series of powerful speeches in and out of parliament, and by the publication of his masterly pamphlet, 1 793 and 1853, Cobden sought to calm the passions of his countrymen.

This gave rise to sympathetic demonstrations in many Dalmatian and Bosnian towns, and to a series of interpellations and speeches by the Yugoslav and Czech deputies in the Parliament of Vienna.

So keenly were the Midlothian speeches appreciated by the Boers that the Boer committee wrote a letter of thanks to Gladstone, and expressed the hope that should a change in the government of Great Britain occur, " the injustice done to the Transvaal might find redress."

Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary.

There was a fierce 1 The laws of Hiero are often mentioned with approval in Cicero's speeches against Verres.

But no one can permanently carry on the government of a great country by speeches from the balcony of a house in the capital, and Lamartine found himself in a dilemma.

His collected speeches and lectures were published under the title of Altertum and Gegenwart (5th ed., 1903 foll.), to which a third volume was added under the title of Unter drei Kaisern (2nd ed., 1895).

That he was a man of great versatility appears in the Acts from the speeches introduced on various occasions, if (as is probable) they were in part, at least, his own composition.

He was one of those who induced the states-general to proclaim itself a National Assembly on the 17th of June 1789; approved, in several speeches, of the capture of the Bastille and of the taking of the royal family to Paris (October 1789); demanded that strict measures be taken against the royalists who were intriguing in the south of France, and published some pamphlets on finance.

In the chamber he still sought to obtain liberty for the press - a theme upon which he published a volume of his speeches (Paris, 1817).

In June a warning proclamation by the governor was answered by a series of violent speeches by Papineau, who in August was deprived of his commission in the militia.

Dinarchus wrote, for one or more of these prosecutors, the three speeches which are still extant - Against Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton, Against Philocles.

The wish to meet people of the different sections of the country and to explain his position upon the questions of the day led the President to begin (14th September 1909), a tour which included the Pacific coast, the South-west, the Mississippi Valley and the South Atlantic states, and during which he travelled 13,000 miles and made 266 speeches.

Whatever may be thought of the manner of this refusal, or of its immediate motives, it was in itself wise, for the German empire would have lost immeasurably had it been the cause rather than the result of the inevitable struggle with Austria, and Bismarck was probably right when he said that, to weld the heterogeneous elements'of Germany into a united whole, what was needed was, not speeches and resolutions, but a policy of "blood and iron."

And when relations with America were becoming critical and menacing in consequence of the depredations committed on American commerce by vessels issuing from British ports, he brought the question before the House of Commons in a series of speeches of rare clearness and force.

His Speeches were collected and published in 1815.

The matter remained in abeyance till 330, when the two rivals delivered their speeches Against Ctesiphon and On the Crown.

His three speeches, called by the ancients "the Three Graces," rank next to those of Demosthenes.

Cicero, who speaks of 150 of these speeches as extant in his day, praises them for their acuteness, their wit, their conciseness.

The story told in the Pro Cluentio may be true or false, but the picture of provincial crime which it presents is vividly dramatic. Had we only known Cicero in his speeches we should have ranked him with Demosthenes as one who had realized the highest literary ideal.

He was one of the earliest of English parliamentary orators; his speeches greatly impressed his contemporaries, and in a later generation, as Macaulay observes, they were "a favourite theme of old men who lived to see the conflicts of Walpole and Pulteney."

Many of Sacheverell's speeches are reported in Anchitell Grey's Debates of the House of Commons, 1667-1694 (io vols., London, 1769).

For other accounts see Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, letter cxl.; Hoenig, Cromwell; Baldock, Cromwell as a Soldier; and Gardiner, Hist.

This honour he owed to the purity of style and remarkable eloquence of his speeches, which, with a few pamphlets, form the bulk of his published work.

Although he lacked oratorical fluency, his short speeches, like his writings, were forceful; his plain dress and unassuming ways helped to make him extremely popular with the common people, in whom he had much greater faith than his cousin John had; and, above all, he was an eminently successful manager of men.

He wrote also forensic speeches; Phrynichus, in Photius, ranks him amongst the best orators, and mentions his orations as the standard of the pure Attic style.

He was jailed in 1937 for his speeches, and Hitler eventually had Martin confined to a concentration camp throughout World War II.

In 1863 he made violent speeches in Ohio against the administration, and for these he was arrested by the military authorities, tried by military commission, and sentenced to imprisonment.

A volume of Selected Speeches was published in 1879.

It had little chance of doing more than make speeches; the country was in the hands of an armed mob of civilians and mutinous soldiers; and, meanwhile, the grand-duke of Baden had joined with Bavaria in requesting the armed intervention of Prussia, which was granted on the condition that Baden should join the League of the Three Kings.

Gensonne was accounted one of the most brilliant of the little band of brilliant orators from the Gironde, though his eloquence was somewhat cold and he always read his speeches.

The next few years were chiefly distinguished by remarkable speeches which displayed the prince in the unexpected character of a great orator.

See The Life and Speeches of the Right Hon.

In 1910 he had published a volume of speeches, which was translated into English, and in 1919 he brought out a work on political conflicts and constitutional reform.

Each was allowed two speeches, and the trial lasted three days.

His extant works are - (i) a speech before Arcadius, De regno; (2) Dio, sive de suo ipsius instituto, in which he signifies his purpose to devote himself to true philosophy; (3) Encomium calvitii (he was himself bald), a literary jeu d'esprit, suggested by Dio Chrysostom's Praise of Hair; (4) De providentia, in two books; (5) De insomniis; (6) 157 Epistolae; (7) 12 Hymni, of a contemplative, Neoplatonic character; and several homilies and occasional speeches.

On this occasion he delivered two speeches on successive days, one in favour of justice, the other against it.

The Choate Story Book (New York, 1903) contains a few of his addresses and after-dinner speeches, and is prefaced by a brief biographical sketch.

The speeches dwell upon Jesus' person and work, as we shall find, with a didactic directness, philosophical terminology and denunciatory exclusiveness unmatched in the Synoptist sayings.