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power of speaking. There is none comparable to the variety of instructive expressions by speech, wherewith man alone is endowed for the communication of his thoughts. Holder.

Full of speech or words; voluble; loquacious. [R.]

The act of speechifying. [Used humorously or in contempt.]

One who makes a speech or speeches; an orator; a declaimer. [Used humorously or in contempt.] G. Eliot.

To make a speech; to harangue. [Used derisively or humorously.]

The act of making a speech or speeches. [Used derisively or humorously.] The dinner and speechifying . . . at the opening of the annual season for the buckhounds. M. Arnold.

The act of making a speech. [R.]

Destitute or deprived of the faculty of speech.

One who makes speeches; one accustomed to speak in a public assembly.

An incidental or casual speech, not directly relating to the point. "To quote by-speeches." Hooker.

A preface. [Obs.] Sherwood.

A speech interposed between others. [R.] Blount.

Wrong speech. [Obs.]

ented by Prof. Alexander Melville Bell to represent all sounds that may be uttered by the speech organs, and intended to be suggestive of the position of the organs of speech in uttering them.

g ability or skill; talented; clever; powerful; as, the ablest man in the senate; an able speech. No man wrote abler state papers. Macaulay.

A figure of speech employed when a speaker having begun to say a thing stops abruptly: thus, "He is a man of so much honor and candor, and of such generosity -- but I need say no more."

Delivery, in speech. [Obs.] B. Jonson. Absolution day (R. C. Ch.), Tuesday before Easter.

Vituperative words; coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; virulent condemnation; reviling. The two parties, after exchanging a good deal of abuse, came to blows. Macaulay.

A word; a significant tone; (pl.) expressions in general; speech. Winds! on your wings to Heaven her accents bear, Such words as Heaven alone is fit to hear. Dryden.

to keep company with; to go along with; -- followed by with or by; as, he accompanied his speech with a bow. The Persian dames, . . . In sumptuous cars, accompanied his march. Glover. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. Sir P. Sidney. He was accompanied by two carts filled with wounded rebels…