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being acrid or pungent; irritant bitterness; acrimony; as, the acridity of a plant, of a speech.

To direct, as words (to any one or any thing); to make, as a speech, petition, etc. (to any one, an audience). The young hero had addressed his players to him for his assistance. Dryden.

An instrument, proposed by Edison, for greatly intensifying speech. It consists of a phonograph diaphragm so arranged that its action opens and closes valves, producing synchronous air blasts sufficient to operate a larger diaphragm with greater amplitude of vibration.

A contraction for are not and am not; also used for is not. [Colloq. or llliterate speech]. See An't.

rm of aphasia, called motor, or ataxis, aphasia, due to loss of control of the muscles of speech.

lainly mentioned; -- followed by to; as, the story alludes to a recent transaction. These speeches . . . do seem to allude unto such ministerial garments as were then in use. Hooker.

Lofty speech; pompous language. [R.] Bailey.

High-sounding; pompous in speech. [R.] Bailey.

a winding. Hence: Circuitous way or proceeding; quibble; circumlocution; indirect mode of speech. After many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is. Burton.

Forgetfulness; also, a defect of speech, from cerebral disease, in which the patient substitutes wrong words or names in the place of those he wishes to employ. Quian.

Ambiguity of speech; equivocation. [R.]

are and am not; also used for is not; -- now usually written ain't. [Colloq. & illiterate speech.]

To speak or write in return to, as in return to a call or question, or to a speech, declaration, argument, or the like; to reply to (a question, remark, etc.); to respond to. She answers him as if she knew his mind. Shak. So spake the apostate angel, though in pain: . . . And him thus answered soon his bold compeer. Mi…

Loss of the power of speech, or of the appropriate use of words, the vocal organs remaining intact, and the intelligence being preserved. It is dependent on injury or disease of the brain.

Pertaining to, or affected by, aphasia; speechless.

A disorder of speech in which words can be uttered but not intelligibly joined together.

A figure of speech in which the speaker breaks off suddenly, as if unwilling or unable to state what was in his mind; as, "I declare to you that his conduct -- but I can not speak of that, here."

A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."

To fit; to suit; to adapt. [Obs.] " To apt their places." B. Jonson. That our speech be apted to edification. Jer. Taylor.

An ancient, antiquated, or old-fashioned, word, expression, or idiom; a word or form of speech no longer in common use.