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A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality; prosopopas, the floods clap their hands. "Confusion heards his voice." Milton.

cially in a philosophical manner and as a science; the investigation of the laws of human speech, the relation of different tongues to one another, and historical development of languages; linguistic science.

ss by which articulate sounds are uttered; the utterance of articulate sounds; articulate speech.

trument for the mechanical registration and reproduction of audible sounds, as articulate speech, etc. It consists of a rotating cylinder or disk covered with some material easily indented, as tinfoil, wax, paraffin, etc., above which is a thin plate carrying a stylus. As the plate vibrates under the influence of a sou…

A description of the laws of the human voice, or sounds uttered by the organs of speech.

The science or doctrine of the elementary sounds uttered by the human voice in speech, including the various distinctions, modifications, and combinations of tones; phonetics. Also, a treatise on sounds.

ithy expression; especially, one which is often employed; a peculiar or idiomatic turn of speech; as, to err is human.

fe; the vital or essential part; concentrated force; vigor; strength; importance; as, the speech lacked pith. Enterprises of great pith and moment. Shak. Pith paper. Same as Rice paper, under Rice.

Having nervous energy; forceful; cogent. This pithy speech prevailed, and all agreed. Dryden. In all these Goodman Fact was very short, but pithy. Addison. Pithy gall (Zoöl.), a large, rough, furrowed, oblong gall, formed on blackberry canes by a small gallfly (Diastrophus nebulosus).

compass of an octave. (b) A simple melody. -- Plain speaking, plainness or bluntness of speech.

Of pleasing speech.

cxxxv. 6. A man doing as he wills, and doing as he pleases, are the same things in common speech. J. Edwards.

nted out. Pope. He points it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of speech. Dickens.

Happening, or done, after dinner; after-dinner; as, postprandial speeches.

peak or utter rhetorically; to deliver; to recite; as, to pronounce an oration. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you. Shak.

nd predicate united by a copula; a thought expressed or propounded in language; a from of speech in which a predicate is affirmed or denied of a subject; as, snow is white.

One who makes much use of proverbs in speech or writing; one who composes, collects, or studies proverbs.

who is overscrupulous or sensitive; one who affects extraordinary prudence in conduct and speech. Less modest than the speech of prudes. Swift.

The quality or state of being prudish; excessive or affected scrupulousness in speech or conduct; stiffness; coyness. Cowper.

tate of being prurient. The pruriency of curious ears. Burke. There is a prurience in the speech of some. Cowper.