Meaning of speak | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To communicate with one's voice, to say words out loud.
   intransitive
2. To have a conversation.
   intransitive, reciprocal
3. To communicate or converse by some means other than orally, such as writing or facial expressions.
   broadly
4. To deliver a message to a group; to deliver a speech.
   intransitive
5. To be able to communicate in a language.
   stative, transitive
6. To be able to communicate in the manner of specialists in a field.
   broadly, stative, transitive
7. To utter.
   transitive
8. To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.
   transitive
9. To understand (as though it were a language).
   humorous, informal, sometimes, transitive
10. To produce a sound; to sound.
    intransitive
11. Of a bird, to be able to vocally reproduce words or phrases from a human language.
12. To address; to accost; to speak to.
    archaic, transitive

Equivalents

Examples

“And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them.”

“I was so surprised I couldn't speak.”

“You're speaking too fast.”

“It's been ages since we've spoken.”

“He spoke of it in his diary.”

“Speak to me only with your eyes.”

“Actions speak louder than words.”

“Then said the gods, making the signs of the gods and speaking with Their hands lest the silence of Pegāna should blush; then said the gods to one another, speaking with Their hands: “Let Us make worlds to amuse Ourselves while Māna rests. Let Us make worlds and Life and Death, and colours in the sky; only let Us not break the silence upon Pegāna.””

“The deed will speak the truth In language strict and pure. I stop the lying mouth: Rage warps my clearest cry To witless agony.”

“This evening I shall speak on the topic of correct English usage.”

“He speaks Mandarin fluently.”

“Even those who did 'speak computer' did so sometimes in a less than fluent way which required a jump to be made from a press-the-right-button stage to having the confidence to experiment.”

“And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.”

“I was so surprised that I couldn't speak a word.”

“Their behaviour to each other speaks the most cordial confidence and happiness.”

“There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.”

“Sorry, I don't speak idiot.”

“So you can program in C. But do you speak C++?”

“Make all our trumpets speak.”

“Miles tremblingly confessed that it had, but to no purpose; a parrot being able to speak better in three weeks than a brazen head.”

“[He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.”

“Each village senior paused to scan / And speak the lovely caravan.”

“To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many parts of the coast almost at the same time—often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore;—to be your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound coastwise; [...]”

“Spoke the ship Union of Newport, without any anchor. The next day ran down to Acra, where the windlass was again capsized and the pawls broken.”

CEFR level