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Reduced; lowered; restrained; as, to speak with bated breath. Macaulay.

A needless repetition of words in speaking or writing. Milton.

tter, bestir. (b) To render an intransitive verb transitive; as, befall (to fall upon); bespeak (to speak for). (c) To make the action of a verb particular or definite; as, beget (to get as offspring); beset (to set around).

To gain or win. [Obs.] Some think to bear it by speaking a great word. Bacon. She was . . . found not guilty, through bearing of friends and bribing of the judge. Latimer.

r proper for; to cause to appear well; -- said of persons and things. It becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet. Dryden. I have known persons so anxious to have their dress become them, as to convert it, at length, into their proper self, and thus actually to become the dress. Coleridge.

ration, or preliminary; previously; aforetime. They may be taught beforehand the skill of speaking. Hooker.

To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a depreciatory or contemptuous way. T. Jefferson.

A platform from which speakers addressed an assembly. Mitford.

imp. & p. p. of Bespeak.

Having two tongues, or speaking two languages. [Obs.]

To use evasion. [Obs.] Books will speak plain, when counselors blanch. Bacon.

To speak of, or address, with impious irreverence; to revile impiously (anything sacred); as, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. So Dagon shall be magnified, and God, Besides whom is no god, compared with idols, Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn. Milton. How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and aven…

Speaking or writing blasphemy; uttering or exhibiting anything impiously irreverent; profane; as, a blasphemous person; containing blasphemy; as, a blasphemous book; a blasphemous caricature. "Blasphemous publications." Porteus. Nor from the Holy One of Heaven Refrained his tongue blasphemous. Milton.…

or signs; impiously irreverent words or signs addressed to, or used in reference to, God; speaking evil of God; also, the act of claiming the attributes or prerogatives of deity.

but blurt out, those words which afterward they forced to eat. Hakewill. To blurt at, to speak contemptuously of. [Obs.] Shak.

To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult. In God we boast all the day long. Ps. xiiv. 8

The act of glorying or vaunting; vainglorious speaking; ostentatious display. When boasting ends, then dignity begins. Young.

To make bold; to encourage; to embolden. Ready speakers, being boldened with their present abilities to say more, . . . use less help of diligence and study. Ascham.

Gay; merry; frolicsome; cheerful; blithe. Be you blithe and bonny. Shak. Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear the matiSir W. Scott.

on. To branch off, to form a branch or a separate part; to diverge. -- To branch out, to speak diffusively; to extend one's discourse to other topics than the main one; also, to enlarge the scope of one's business, etc. To branch out into a long disputation. Spectator.