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A public speaker; one who delivers an oration; especially, one distinguished for his skill and power as a public speaker; one who is eloquent. I am no orator, as Brutus is. Shak. Some orator renowned In Athens or free Rome. Milton.

The art of an orator; the art of public speaking in an eloquent or effective manner; the exercise of rhetorical skill in oral discourse; eloquence. "The oratory of Greece and Rome." Milton. When a world of men Could not prevail with all their oratory. Shak.

imes used impersonally or without a subject expressed. "Well ought us work." Chaucer. To speak of this as it ought, would ask a volume. Milton. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Luke xxiv. 26.

Speaking, or spoken, freely, openly, or boldly; as, an outspoken man; an outspoken rebuke. -- Out*spo"ken*ness, n.

ne who delivers a panegyric; a eulogist; one who extols or praises, either by writing or speaking. If these panegyrists are in earnest. Burke.

One who acts his part by gesticulation or dumb show only, without speaking; a pantomimist. [He] saw a pantomime perform so well that he could follow the performance from the action alone. Tylor.

A rounded, nipplelike hill or peak; anything resembling a nipple in shape; a mamelon. Macaulay.

A pretended or apparent omission; a figure by which a speaker artfully pretends to pass by what he really mentions; as, for example, if an orator should say, "I do not speak of my adversary's scandalous venality and rapacity, his brutal conduct, his treachery and malice." [Written also paralepsis, paralepsy, paralipsis…

Speaking; in a speaking or declamatory manner; to be sung or played in the style of a recitative.

To speak with another; to confer on some point of mutual concern; to discuss orally; hence, specifically, to confer orally with an enemy; to treat with him by words, as on an exchange of prisoners, an armistice, or terms of peace. They are at hand, To parley or to fight; therefore prepare. Shak.

A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyl; a bucolic. A pastoral is a poem in which any action or passion is represented by its effects on a country life. Rambler.

In speaking or reading aloud, a brief arrest or suspension of voice, to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts.

See Peak, n., 3.

One of a class eligible to the office of senator, but not yet chosen, who could sit and speak in the senate, but could not vote; -- so called because he might indicate his opinion by walking over to the side of the party he favored when a vote was taken.

Bill of an anchor. See Peak, 3 (c).

By chance; perhaps; it may be; if; supposing. "If peradventure he speak against me." Shak. Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city. Gen. xviii. 24.

rstand. Jesus perceived their wickedness. Matt. xxii. 18. You may, fair lady, Perceive I speak sincerely. Shak. Till we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are still in the dark. Locke.

of more words than are necessary to express the idea; a roundabout, or indirect, way of speaking; circumlocution. "To describe by enigmatic periphrases." De Quincey.

an act; to authorize; to give leave; -- followed by an infinitive. Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Acis xxvi. 1.

One of three relations or conditions (that of speaking, that of being spoken to, and that of being spoken of) pertaining to a noun or a pronoun, and thence also to the verb of which it may be the subject.