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Hesitating; trembling. "With faltering speech." Milton. -- n.

Ambounding in figures of speech; flowery; florid; as, a highly figurative description.

Unanimated; dull; uninteresting; without point or spirit; monotonous; as, a flat speech or composition. How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world. Shak.

That flatters (in the various senses of the verb); as, a flattering speech. Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. Shak. A flattering painter, who made it his care, To draw men as they ought be, not as they are. Goldsmith.

Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative. It becometh good men, in such cases, to be flippant and free in their speech. Barrow.

A figure of speech; an ornament of style.

s; as, a fluent speaker; hence, flowing; voluble; smooth; -- said of language; as, fluent speech. With most fluent utterance. Denham. Fluent as the flight of a swallow is the sultan's letter. De Quincey.

artlett. Folk song, one of a class of songs long popular with the common people. -- Folk speech, the speech of the common people, as distinguished from that of the educated class.

o keep the eyes fixed upon while in motion; to keep the mind upon while in progress, as a speech, musical performance, etc.; also, to keep up with; to understand the meaning, connection, or force of, as of a course of thought or argument. He followed with his eyes the flitting shade. Dryden.

of infinitive, in order to; to the end of. [Obs., except as sometimes heard in illiterate speech.] -- "What went ye out for to see" Luke vii. 25. See To, prep., 4. -- O for, would that I had; may there be granted; -- elliptically expressing desire or prayer. "O for a muse of fire." Shak. -- Were it not for, or If it…

The particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech; as, participial forms; verbal forms.

is breath and voice; the formal is constituted by the motion and figure of the organs of speech. Holder.

To shape; to arrange, as the organs of speech. [Obs.] Judg. xii. 6.

acterized by disuse of outward rites and an ordained ministry, by simplicity of dress and speech, and esp. by opposition to war and a desire to live at peace with all men. They are popularly called Quakers. America was first visited by Friends in 1656. T. Chase.

pty, senseless show of wit or eloquence; rhetoric without thought. Johnson. It was a long speech, but all froth. L'Estrange.

A contemptuous speech or piece of conduct; a gibe or flout. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.

o hinder speaking; hence, to silence by authority or by violence; not to allow freedom of speech to. Marvell. The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hood winked. Maccaulay.

A mode of speech peculiar to the French; a French idiom; also, in general, a French mode or custom.

l appearance, as expressive of the feelings or character; looks; fashion or manner, as of speech. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel. Shak.

or spoken smoothly and with flippant rapidity; fluent; voluble; as, a glib tongue; a glib speech. I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not. Shak.