speech
/spiːt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.85 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The ability to speak; the faculty of uttering words or articulate sounds and vocalizations to communicate.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "He had a bad speech impediment."
- "After the accident she lost her speech."
- "All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion[…] such talk had been distressingly out of place."
- "I was at liberty to attend to Wilbert, who I could see desired speech with me. […] As far as Bobbie and I were concerned, silence reigned, this novel twist in the scenario having wiped speech from our lips, as the expression is, but Phyllis continued vocal. […] For perhaps a quarter of a minute after he had passed from the scene the aged relative stood struggling for utterance. At the end of this period she found speech. “Of all the damn silly fatheaded things!”"
- "It was hard to hear his speech over the noise."
- "Her speech was soft and lilting."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *sprākī Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Germanic *-ō Proto-West Germanic *-u Proto-West Germanic *sprāku Old English sprǣċ Old English spǣċ Middle English speche English speech From Middle English speche, from Old English spǣċ, sprǣċ (“speech, discourse, language”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprāku (“speech, language”), from Proto-Indo-European *spereg-, *spreg- (“to make a sound”). Cognate with Dutch spraak (“speech”), German Sprache (“language, speech”). More at speak.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: speche, spǣċ, *sprāku, *spereg-