Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

Jump to content
WiktionaryThe Free Dictionary
Search

speak

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also:-speak

English

[edit]
EnglishWikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

FromMiddle Englishspeke,speken(“to speak”), fromOld Englishspecan(“to speak”). This is usually taken to be an irregular alteration of earliersprecan,spreocan(“to speak”), fromProto-West Germanic*sprekan, fromProto-Germanic*sprekaną(“to speak, make a sound”), fromProto-Indo-European*spreg-(“to make a sound, utter, speak”). Finding this proposed loss ofr from the stable clusterspr unparalleled, Hill instead sets up a different root,Proto-West Germanic*spekan(“to negotiate”) fromProto-Indo-European*bʰégʾ-e-(“to distribute”) with *s-mobile, which collapsed in meaning with *sprekan ("to speak" < "to crackle, prattle") and so came to be seen as a free variant thereof.

Cognates

Cognate withScotsspeak,speik(“to speak”),Saterland Frisianspreke(“to speak”),West Frisiansprekke(“to speak”),Central Franconiansjprèche(“to speak”),Dutch andLow Germanspreken(“to speak”),Germansprechen(“to speak”),Luxembourgishspriechen(“to speak”), and also withAlbanianshpreh(“to express, manifest, show”) through Indo-European.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Verb

[edit]

speak (third-person singular simple presentspeaks,present participlespeaking,simple pastspokeor(archaic)spake,past participlespokenor(colloquial, nonstandard)spoke)

  1. (intransitive) Tocommunicate with one'svoice, tosaywordsout loud.
    • 1918,W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXV, inThe Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.:The Bobbs-Merrill Company,→OCLC,page203:
      And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. Hespoke 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'tspeak.
    You'respeaking too fast.
  2. (intransitive, reciprocal) To have aconversation.
    It's been ages since we'vespoken.
  3. (by extension) Tocommunicate orconverse by some means other thanorally, such aswriting orfacialexpressions.
    Hespoke of it in his diary.
    Speak to me only with your eyes.
    Actionsspeak louder than words.
    • 1905,Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany],The Gods of Pegāna, London:[Charles] Elkin Mathews, […],→OCLC,page 4:
      Then said the gods, making the signs of the gods andspeaking 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.”
    • 1941,Theodore Roethke, “Open House”, inOpen House, New York, N.Y.:Alfred A[braham] Knopf,→OCLC; republished inThe Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, London:Faber and Faber […],1968,→OCLC,page 3:
      The deed willspeak the truth
      In language strict and pure.
      I stop the lying mouth:
      Rage warps my clearest cry
      To witless agony.
  4. (intransitive) To deliver a message to a group; to deliver aspeech.
    This evening I shallspeak on the topic of correct English usage.
  5. (transitive, stative) To be able to communicate in alanguage.
    Hespeaks Mandarin fluently.
    1. (by extension) To be able to communicate in the manner of specialists in a field.
      • 1998, Nigel G Fielding, Raymond M Lee,Computer Analysis and Qualitative Research‎[1], page 4:
        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.
  6. (transitive) Toutter.
    I was so surprised that I couldn'tspeak a word.
  7. (transitive) Tocommunicate (some fact or feeling); tobespeak, toindicate.
  8. (informal, transitive, sometimes humorous) Tounderstand (as though it were a language).
    Sorry, I don'tspeak idiot.
    So you can program in C. But do youspeak C++?
  9. (intransitive) To produce a sound; tosound.
  10. Of a bird, to be able to vocally reproduce words or phrases from a human language.
    • 1936, Rollo Ahmed,The Black Art, London: Long, page220:
      Miles tremblingly confessed that it had, but to no purpose; a parrot being able tospeak better in three weeks than a brazen head.
  11. (transitive, archaic) Toaddress; toaccost; to speak to.
    • 1611,The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […],→OCLC,Ecclesiasticus13:6:
      [He will] thee in hope; he willspeak thee fair.
    • 1847,R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Threnody”, inPoems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company,→OCLC,page239:
      Each village senior paused to scan / Andspeak the lovely caravan.
    • 1854 August 9,Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Economy”, inWalden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.:Ticknor and Fields,→OCLC:
      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; [...]
    • 2013, George Francis Dow,Slave Ships and Slaving (quoting an older text)
      Spoke the shipUnion of Newport, without any anchor. The next day ran down to Acra, where the windlass was again capsized and the pawls broken.

Usage notes

[edit]
  • Saying that one speaks a language often means that onecan orknows how to speak it (“I speak Italian”); similarly, “I don’t speak Italian” usually means that one cannot, rather than that one chooses not to.

Conjugation

[edit]
Conjugation ofspeak
infinitive(to)speak
present tensepast tense
1st-personsingularspeakspoke
2nd-personsingularspeak,speakest†spoke,spokest†
3rd-personsingularspeaks,speaketh†spoke
pluralspeak
subjunctivespeakspoke
imperativespeak—
participlesspeakingspoken

Synonyms

[edit]

Antonyms

[edit]

Coordinate terms

[edit]

Derived terms

[edit]
Single-word or hyphenated terms derived fromspeak (verb)

phrasal verbs

idioms
others (may need to be in above sections, i.e. this is an unsorted dump of Derived terms)

Related terms

[edit]

Translations

[edit]
to communicate with one's voice using words
to have a conversation
to communicate or converse by some means other than orally
to deliver a speech
to be able to communicate in a language
to utter
to communicate a fact or feeling
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

[edit]

speak (countable anduncountable,pluralspeaks)

  1. (uncountable)Language,jargon, orterminology used uniquely in a particular environment or group.
    corporatespeak; ITspeak
    • 2025 May 3, Kev, “Rocket Appartamento TCA Review”, inCoffee Blog‎[2]:
      We'll go into more depth with all the specs shortly so anyone less well versed in espressospeak will understand what I'm harping on about, but firstly let's just talk about using the machine.
  2. (countable)Speech,conversation.(Can we add anexample for this sense?)
  3. (countable, informal)Clipping ofspeaker point.
    We will deductspeaks for hesitation.

Derived terms

[edit]
Terms derived fromspeak (noun)

Translations

[edit]
jargon/terminology
speech, conversation

Noun

[edit]

speak (pluralspeaks)

  1. (dated) a low classbar, aspeakeasy.

References

[edit]
  • Hill, Eugen. "Die Präferenztheorie in der historischen Phonologie aus junggrammatischer Perspektive."Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 28.2 (2009): 231–263.

Anagrams

[edit]

Scots

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

FromOld Englishsprecan.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Verb

[edit]

speak (third-person singular simple presentspeaks,present participlespeakin,simple pastspak,past participlespoken)

  1. tospeak

Derived terms

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=speak&oldid=89520683"
Categories:
Hidden categories:
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2026 Movatter.jp