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To utter in a word or words; to say; to tell; to declare orally; as, to speak the truth; to speak sense.

To form words with letters, esp. with the proper letters, either orally or in writing. When what small knowledge was, in them did dwell, And he a god, who could but read or spell. Dryden.

An extensive division of marine Annelida, including those that are without oral tentacles or cirri, and have the gills, when present, mostly arranged along the sides of the body. They generally live in burrows or tubes.

Uttered in speech; delivered by word of mouth; oral; as, a spoken narrative; the spoken word.

The act of stating, reciting, or presenting, orally or in paper; as, to interrupt a speaker in the statement of his case.

Mode of expressing thought in language, whether oral or written; especially, such use of language in the expression of thought as exhibits the spirit and faculty of an artist; choice or arrangement of words in discourse; rhetorical expression. High style, as when that men to kinges write. Chaucer. Style is the dress of…

re as in the vowels, but dimmed and otherwise modified by some kind of obstruction in the oral or the nasal passage, and in some cases with a mixture of breath sound; -- a term introduced by Dr. James Rush in 1833. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§155, 199-202.

That which is told; an oral relation or recital; any rehearsal of what has occured; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story. "The tale of Troy divine." Milton. "In such manner rime is Dante's tale." Chaucer. We spend our years as a tale that is told. Ps. xc. 9.

The unwritten or oral delivery of information, opinions, doctrines, practices, rites, and customs, from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any knowledge, opinions, or practice, from forefathers to descendants by oral communication, without written memorials.

Transmitted or transmissible from father to son, or from age, by oral communication; traditional. [R.] Jer. Taylor. Suppose we on things traditive divide. Dryden.

A written version of what was said orally; as, a transcript of a trial.

Not written; not reduced to writing; oral; as, unwritten agreements.

pressed in words, whether spoken or written, but commonly in spoken words; hence, spoken; oral; not written; as, a verbal contract; verbal testimony. Made she no verbal question Shak. We subjoin an engraving . . . which will give the reader a far better notion of the structure than any verbal description could convey t…

In a verbal manner; orally.

By word of mouth; orally.

Uttered or modulated by the voice; oral; as, vocal melody; vocal prayer. "Vocal worship." Milton.

In a vocal manner; with voice; orally; with audible sound.

dæ. They have a more or less bell-shaped body with a circle of vibrating cilia around the oral disk. Most of the species have slender, contractile stems, either simple or branched.

A vocal, or sometimes a whispered, sound modified by resonance in the oral passage, the peculiar resonance in each case giving to each several vowel its distinctive character or quality as a sound of speech; -- distinguished from a consonant in that the latter, whether made with or without vocality, derives its charact…

ere is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. Dickens. By word of mouth, orally; by actual speaking. Boyle. -- Compound word. See under Compound, a. -- Good word, commendation; favorable account. "And gave the harmless fellow a good word." Pope. -- In a word, briefly; to sum up. -- In word, in decl…