speak

English Online Dictionary. What means speak‎? What does speak mean?

English

Alternative forms

• speake (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English speken (“to speak”), from Old English specan (“to speak”). This is usually taken to be an irregular alteration of earlier sprecan (“to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprekan, from Proto-Germanic *sprekaną (“to speak, make a sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *spreg- (“to make a sound, utter, speak”). Finding this proposed loss of r from the stable cluster spr unparalleled, Hill instead sets up a different root, Proto-West Germanic *spekan (“to negotiate”) from Proto-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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /spiːk/
• (General American) enPR: spēk, IPA^(key): /spik/
• Rhymes: -iːk

Verb

speak (third-person singular simple present speaks, present participle speaking, simple past spoke or (archaic) spake, past participle spoken or (colloquial, nonstandard) spoke)

1. (intransitive) To communicate with one's voice, to say words out loud.

2. (intransitive, reciprocal) To have a conversation.

3. (by extension) To communicate or converse by some means other than orally, such as writing or facial expressions.
4. (intransitive) To deliver a message to a group; to deliver a speech.

5. (transitive, stative) To be able to communicate in a language.
   1. (by extension) To be able to communicate in the manner of specialists in a field.
6. (transitive) To utter.

7. (transitive) To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.
8. (informal, transitive, sometimes humorous) To understand (as though it were a language).

9. (intransitive) To produce a sound; to sound.
10. Of a bird, to be able to vocally reproduce words or phrases from a human language.
11. (transitive, archaic) To address; to accost; to speak to.
    • 2013, George Francis Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving (quoting an older text)

      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.

Usage notes

• Saying that one speaks a language often means that one can or knows 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

Synonyms

• articulate, talk, verbalize

Antonyms

• be silent

Coordinate terms

• sign

Derived terms

Related terms

• speech

Translations

Noun

speak (countable and uncountable, plural speaks)

1. (uncountable) language, jargon, or terminology used uniquely in a particular environment or group.

   corporate speak; IT speak

2. (countable) Speech, conversation. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
3. (countable, informal) Short for speaker point.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

speak (plural speaks)

1. (dated) a low class bar, a speakeasy.

References

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

Anagrams

• peaks, Pasek, Paske, Peaks, Paeks, Akpes, Spake, sapek, kapes, pesak, spake

Scots

Etymology

From Old English sprecan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [spɪk]
• (North Northern Scots) IPA^(key): [spɛk]

Verb

speak (third-person singular simple present speaks, present participle speakin, simple past spak, past participle spoken)

1. to speak

Derived terms