DECLAIM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Declaim

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/dɪklˈeɪm/ Listen

verb

Declaim v. t.

To utter in public; to deliver in a rhetorical or set manner.

To defend by declamation; to advocate loudly. (Obs.) "Declaims his cause."

Declaim v. i. (past & past part. declaimed; pres. part. declaiming)

To speak rhetorically; to make a formal speech or oration; to harangue; specifically, to recite a speech, poem, etc., in public as a rhetorical exercise; to practice public speaking; as, the students declaim twice a week.

To speak for rhetorical display; to speak pompously, noisily, or theatrically; to make an empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant. "Grenville seized the opportunity to declaim on the repeal of the stamp act."

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Etymology of 'Declaim'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Declaim" Quotes from Famous Books

... the self-conscious diffuseness of tragic poetry. In her white bridal dress (the cap she had joyfully worked for herself) she went to her cruel death, still repeating the words, "I am innocent." The funeral, at St. George the Martyr, was attended by 10,000 people. Curran used to declaim eloquently on her unhappy fate, and Mr. Charles Phillips wrote a glowing rhapsody on this victim of legal dulness. But such mistakes not even Justice herself can correct. A city mourned over her early grave; but the life was taken, and there was no redress. Gadsden, the ...

— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... had fallen out with the great trading company of Alaska and did almost all his purchasing from a "mail-order house" in Chicago, the enormous quarto catalogue on the flimsiest thin paper issued by that establishment being his chief book of reference and his choice continual reading. He would declaim by the hour on the iniquitous prices that prevail in the interior and had the quotations of prices of every conceivable merchandise from his vade ...

— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... airy voice so coincident with his own feelings, thinks it ideal, chides his babbling thoughts, and so forth: then enter to him suddenly chance-met noble citizens, burnt out of house and home, who declaim furiously against Nero. Sibyl, still unseen from behind the altar, again hails Galba as future Caesar; who, no longer doubting his ears, and all present taking the omen, they conspire at the altar with drawn swords, and as the Sibyl suddenly presides—tableau—and down drops the ...

— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... of my slight annoyance at being deprived by him of the chance to declaim Latin poetry, which is an exercise that I approve and enjoy; but of course, to go on with it, after he had intervened with his translation, ...

— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... forgetting himself? However, it is probable you may one of these days see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive; for I ...

— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

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