Definition of "speak"

speak

/spiːk/

verb
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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 203
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.
  Quotations
  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.”
  1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […]
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.
    Quotations
    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.
    1998, Nigel G Fielding, Raymond M Lee, Computer Analysis and Qualitative Research‎, page 4
6. (transitive) To utter.
  Quotations
  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.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Jeremiah 9:5
7. (transitive) To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.
  Quotations
  Their behaviour to each other speaks the most cordial confidence and happiness.
  1785, Frances Burney, Diary and letters of Madame d'Arblay, author of Evelina, Cecilia, &c., link
  There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.
  1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “A Bosom Friend.”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 56
8. (informal, transitive, sometimes humorous) To understand (as though it were a language).
9. (intransitive) To produce a sound; to sound.
  Quotations
  Make all our trumpets speak.
  c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene vi], page 150
10. Of a bird, to be able to vocally reproduce words or phrases from a human language.
  Quotations
  Miles tremblingly confessed that it had, but to no purpose; a parrot being able to speak better in three weeks than a brazen head.
  1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 220
11. (transitive, archaic) To address; to accost; to speak to.
  Quotations
  [He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Ecclesiasticus 13:6
  Each village senior paused to scan / And speak the lovely caravan.
  1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Threnody”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, page 239
  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; [...]
  1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Economy”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields
  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.
  2013, George Francis Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving (quoting an older text)
noun
countable and uncountable, plural speaks
1. (uncountable) language, jargon, or terminology used uniquely in a particular environment or group.
2. (countable) Speech, conversation.
3. (countable, informal) Short for speaker point.
noun
plural speaks
1. (dated) a low class bar, a speakeasy.

Definition of "speak"

speak

verb

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noun

noun