speech
Definitions
General English
- noun a formal talk given to an audience
- noun the ability to say words, or the act of saying words
Electronics
- The enunciation of words. Speech may be natural, as in humans talking, or artificial, as in digital speech.
Medical
- noun the ability to make intelligible sounds with the vocal cords
Politics
- noun a talk given in public
Origin & History of “speech”
Speech originated as a derivative of the
late Old
English verb specan,
ancestor of
modern English
speak. It was originally used for the ‘action of speaking’ in
general, or for ‘conversation’; the modern application to an ‘address delivered to an audience’ did not emerge until the 16th
century.
