Search the Dictionary

To view with a scrutinizing eye; to examine. With such altered looks, . . . All pale and speechless, he surveyed me round. Dryden.

A figure of speech by which a word is used in a literal and metaphorical sense at the same time.

A figure of speech in which opposite things or persons are compared. Crabb.

y synecdoche; implying a synecdoche. Isis is used for Themesis by a synecdochical kind of speech, or by a poetical liberty, in using one for another. Drayton.

The end, or catchword, of an actor's speech; cue.

g to, the chief linguistic stock of Indo-China, including the peoples of Siamese and Shan speech.

An instrument for reproducing sounds, especially articulate speech, at a distance.

Operating with great effect; effective; as, a telling speech. -- Tell"ing*ly, adv.

A mode of speech peculiar to the Teutons; a Teutonic idiom, phrase, or expression; a Teutonic mode or custom; a Germanism.

, stage, etc., regarded as a distinct place; as, he did not stop there, but continued his speech. The law that theaten'd death becomes thy friend And turns it to exile; there art thou happy. Shak.

; virtues. [Obs.] For her great light Of sapience, and for her thews clear. Chaucer. Evil speeches destroy good thews. Wyclif (1 Cor. xv. 33). To be upbrought in gentle thews and martial might. Spenser.

The power of articulate utterance; speech. Parrots imitating human tongue. Dryden.

To deprive of speech or the power of speech, or of distinct articulation.

Destitute of the power of distinct articulation; having an impediment in the speech, esp. when caused by a short frænum.

Hence, speechless; mute. "What tongueless blocks were they! would they not speak" Shak.

Of or relating to tones or sounds; specifically (Phon.), applied to, or distingshing, a speech sound made with tone unmixed and undimmed by obstruction, such sounds, namely, the vowels and diphthongs, being so called by Dr. James Rush (1833) " from their forming the purest and most plastic material of intonation."…

Personal reference or application. [Obs.] Speech of touch toward others should be sparingly used. Bacon.

Continuity or extension of anything; as, the tract of speech. [Obs.] Older.

A passing from one subject to another. [He] with transition sweet, new speech resumes. Milton.

Taking from one to another; metaphorical. [R.] "A transumptive kind of speech." Drayton. Fictive, descriptive, digressive, transumptive, and withal definitive. Lowell.