首页英语词典speakspeak的意思

speak

英 [spiːk] 美[spik]

英英释义同义词辨析词组搭配考试真题实用场景例句

近义词express say discuss voice talk tell utter

vi. 说话；演讲；表明；陈述
vt. 讲话；发言；讲演

CET4TEM4考研CET6高频词基本词汇

词态变化

第三人称单数: speaks;过去式: spoke;过去分词: spoken;现在分词: speaking;

中文词源

speak 说话，交谈，发言，演说

来自古英语 specan,拼写变体自 sprecan,说话，交谈，来自 Proto-Germanic*sprekana,说话，来自 PIE*sprek,说话，可能来自 PIE*spreg,播洒，散开，展开，词源同 spark,spread.引申诸相关词义。

英英释意

1. express in speech;: "She talks a lot of nonsense"; "This depressed patient does not verbalize"

2. exchange thoughts; talk with;: "We often talk business"; "Actions talk louder than words"

3. use language;: "the baby talks already"; "the prisoner won't speak"; "they speak a strange dialect"

4. give a speech to;: "The chairman addressed the board of trustees"

5. make a characteristic or natural sound;: "The drums spoke"

英文词源

speak: speak: [OE] The usual Old English word for ‘speak’ was sprecan, which has close living relatives in German sprechen and Dutch spreken. Specan, the ancestor of modern English speak, did not appear until around the year 1000, but already by the 12th century it had virtually replaced sprecan. It is not known how the r-less form (which has no surviving relatives in other Germanic languages) arose, but it is clearly a secondary development of the r-form.

This seems to be connected with Danish spage ‘crackle’, Lithuanian sprageti ‘crackle’, and Sanskrit sphūrj- ‘crackle, rustle’, suggesting that the English word’s use for ‘utter, say’ arose via an earlier ‘crackle, prattle, babble, chatter’ (English ‘crack on about something’, ‘not what it’s cracked up to be’, and ‘crack a joke’ are remnants of an earlier widespread use of English crack for ‘speak’).
=> speech
speak (v.): Old English specan, variant of sprecan "to speak, utter words; make a speech; hold discourse (with others)" (class V strong verb; past tense spræc, past participle sprecen), from Proto-Germanic *sprek-, *spek- (cognates: Old Saxon sprecan, Old Frisian spreka, Middle Dutch spreken, Old High German sprehhan, German sprechen "to speak," Old Norse spraki "rumor, report"), from PIE root *spreg- (1) "to speak," perhaps identical with PIE root *spreg- (2) "to strew," on notion of speech as a "scattering" of words.

The -r- began to drop out in Late West Saxon and was gone by mid-12c., perhaps from influence of Danish spage "crackle," also used in a slang sense of "speak" (compare crack (v.) in slang senses having to do with speech, such as wisecrack, cracker, all it's cracked up to be). Elsewhere, rare variant forms without -r- are found in Middle Dutch (speken), Old High German (spehhan), dialectal German (spächten "speak").

Not the primary word for "to speak" in Old English (the "Beowulf" author prefers maþelian, from mæþel "assembly, council," from root of metan "to meet;" compare Greek agoreuo "to speak, explain," originally "speak in the assembly," from agora "assembly").
speak (n.): c. 1300, "talk, speech," from speak (v.). Survived in Scottish English and dialect, but modern use in compounds probably is entirely traceable to Orwell (see Newspeak).

同义词辨析

say, speak, state, talk, tell, utter

这些动词均有"说，讲"之意。

say：最普通常用词，指用语言表达思想，着重所说的内容。

speak：侧重于说话动作的本身，着重说话的能力而不在内容，可以是长篇大论的演讲，也可以是三言两语的交谈，甚至指简单的开口发声说话。

state：较正式用词，通常指用明确的语言或文字着重地叙述事实，既强调内容又注重语气。

talk：普通用词，侧重指与人交谈时的连续说话，可指单方面较长谈话，和speak一样，着重说活动作而不侧重内容。

tell：普通用词，指把某事告诉或讲述给某人听，口语或书面语均可用。

utter：着重说话的行为，常指声音的使用，突出用噪子发声。

考试真题

Traditional Ukrainian decorated eggs also spoke to those fears.

Contemporary artists have followed this tradition to create eggs that speak to the anxieties of our age: Life is precious, and delicate.

She was the first candidate to speak out for strong pre-K programming.

She primarily speaks to students in health classes, but sometimes the school will arrange for her to speak to several different groups of girls.

Jody Hubbard is a diet and nutrition expert who travels around the state to speak in middle and high schools.

We are losing revenue as we speak, Donahoe said.

They asked, Was it as good as American beef? It was very exciting for me to be on Japanese TV, speaking in Japanese about how delicious the beef was.

Ifyou can speak the language, it’s easier to get to know thecountry and its people.

The research argued that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when their female peers do better earlier in speaking and reading skills.

Mr David Rossi stated that he had spoken with McLaughlin on several occasions about his driving record.

Of course, I'm good at computers and I can speak Spanish.

But it's a fact that informative speaking saves lives.

He is very good at public speaking

Who did Alex Gordon speak to at the first meeting?

You are speaking to a voice coming from someone you cannot see.

Later he spoke with one of the senior managers.

And my boyfriend's English is so good that we just basically speak English all the time.

If you can speak the language, it's easier to get to know the country and its people.

In an all girls setting, girls are more likely to speak up frequently and make significant contributions to class than in a coeducational setting.

within the Alps in central Europe is Liechtenstein, a tiny country of about 30, 000 people who speak mostly German.

The British traveler Charles Thompson spoke for many Grand Tourists when in 1744 he described himself as being impatiently desirous of viewing a country so famous in history, a country which once gave laws to the world, and which is at present the greatest school of music and painting, contains the noblest productions of sculpture and architecture, and is filled with cabinets of rarities, and collections of all kinds of historical relics.

They speak with Mom or Dad when they have a problem.

He spoke out against the idea of white and black as distinct groups, claiming that these distinctions ignored the scope of human diversity.

When you hear people speaking of making a rapid transition toward any type of energy, whether it is a switch from coal to nuclear power, or a switch from gasoline-powered cars to electric cars, or even a switch from an incandescent to a fluorescent light, understanding energy system inertia and momentum can help you decide whether their plans are feasible.

After all, we don't speak only of objects or people as having momentum; we speak of entire systems having momentum.

Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting -quick, casual and only intended to be read once — is actually a way of talking with your fingers.

Quite often, educators tell families of children who are learning English as a second language to speak only English, and not their native language, at home.

It is also of concern that the misguided advice that students should speak only English is given primarily to poor families with limited educational opportunities, not to wealthier families who have many educational advantages

Since children from poor families often are identified as at-risk for academic failure, teachers believe that advising families to speak English only is appropriate.

Advising non-English-speaking families to speak only English is overwhelming to telling them not to communicate with or interact with their children

Realizing that this particular audience would find his regional accent unattractive, Larry planned to speak with an accent that would be more acceptable to his audience.

Larry arrived early for his speaking engagement.

By speaking in a deep, loud voice

By speaking with the local accent.

His writing and speaking raised the awareness of the importance of conservation and helped bring about our national park system.

What did John Muir intend to do through writing and speaking

So she was not surprised to see a number of hands go up as soon as she finished speaking

At office meetings and in group discussions, they might speak up more often, express strong opinions and come up with more creative and practical ideas than their male colleagues.

Speak loudly enough to attract attention

Since he was speaking in the Midwest, he decided to begin by noting that the most severe earthquake in American history took place not in California or Alaska but at New Madrid, Missouri in 1811.

"If they are anywhere near worth their salt as engineers, I bet they are rethinking their threat model as we speak," said Jonathan Zdziarski, a digital expert who studies the iPhone and its vulnerabilities.

For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu's 80 islands speak 110 different languages.

simultaneous interpreting, putting someone's words into another language more or less as they speak, sounds to me like the more difficult.

They live in 16 different communities and speak 16 distinct languages.

This can hinder your ability to make decisions, speak up and gain recognition for your individual skills and strengths.

While the candle is being lit, a principle is recited; then each person present takes a turn to speak about the importance that principle has to himself or herself.

Yet the residents of each village speak a completely different language.

A company showed a new voice technology able to produce such a convincing human-sounding voice that it was able to speak to a receptionist.

A week went by, a woman called to speak to Alice.

As more and more people speak the global languages of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing.

Both the hand movements and the very idea of communicating without speaking attracted me.

During my first quarter, I spoke directly to the chancellor, asking him for support towards my initiatives, met with the vice chancellors.

Hannah began to speak out about the homelessness in manitoba and then in other provinces.

Harvold, who has not passed his driving test, said, "I realized the bus was out of control when I was speaking to the students."

How many languages are spoken by less than 6000 people at present?

I spoke with our delivery department at about ten this morning, and they said that the chairs will be delivered by four this afternoon.

I was afraid that to speak in front of a larger group of people.

If you want to improve your speaking skills, you can go to room 602.

In fact, half of the 6, 000-7, 000 languages spoken around the world today will likely die out by the next century, according to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization UNESCO.

In recent years, many writers have begun to speak the 'decline of class' and 'classless society' in Britain.

In that case, ask to speak in person as soon as possible and say sorry.

In the coming months, we are bringing together artists from all over the globe, to enjoy speaking Shakespeare's plays in their own language, in our globe, within the architecture Shakespeare wrote for.

It can also speak different languages and make recommendations for different items based on what the customer is shopping for.

It was so noisy that we couldn't hear ourselves speak.

Italians always "see me as a foreigner," an outsider, even though she's stayed in the country for years and can speak the local language fluently, she said.

One group was asked to seek out an interaction with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary.

Our standard course guarantees a significant increase in your confidence in a foreign language, with focused teaching in all 4 skill areas----speaking, listening, reading and writing.

People speak very fast and it's hard to get them to repeat things.

She speaks itAlian well enough for her job.

Some language experts believe that 10000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 1200 languages between them.

Steve and Naomi spoke in musical code lines, beats, intervals, moving from the root to end a song in a new key.

The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being"captured"by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms.

The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers.

The median number(中位数) of speakers is a mere 6000, which means that half the world's languages are spoken by fewer people than that.

The passenger made an apology to angie o'edema because he spoke very loudly on his phone.

The spoken languages were enough in all my interactions.

The words a person speaks tell her or his class.

Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what Maybe implied is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing.

Uses of prezi in listening and speaking courses draw students' attention to speaking more fluently.

Whaley says the project is about more than just learning to read and speak in public.

When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.

With shining dark eyes, he seems like the of kid who would enjoy public speaking.

Works of this type, he believed, spoke to deep and unvarying features of human nature and could continue to exist over centuries.

More recently, while examining housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English- speaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry’s work.

There is no doubt that gardens evidence an impossible urge to create, express, fashion, and beautify and that self-expression is a basic human urge; yet when one looks at the photographs of the garden created by the homeless, it strikes one that , for all their diversity of styles, these gardens speak of various other fundamental urges, beyond that of decoration and creative expression.

In plays，novels and narrative poems, characters speak as constructs created by the author, not necessarily as mouthpieces for the author’s own thoughts.

But this seems to be the irony of office speak: Everyone makes fun of it, but managers love it, companies depend on it, and regular people willingly absorb it.

In a workplace that's fundamentally indifferent to your life and its meaning, office speak can help you figure out how you relate to your work—and how your work defines who you are.

Parents, he says, can get a lot out of using their devices to speak to a friend or get some work out of the way.

词组搭配

not to speak of

used in introducing a further factor to be considered

更不要说

the rent had to be paid, not to speak of school fees.
房租要交，更不要说还要交学费。

nothing (或 no——, none) to speak of

used to indicate that there is some but very little of something

［表明只有非常少的一点］不值一提

I've no capital—well, none to speak of.
我没有资金，真的，少得不值一提。

something speaks for itself

something's implications are so clear that it needs no supporting evidence or comments

无需进一步说明，不言而喻

the figures speak for themselves.
这些数字就足够说明了。

speak for oneself

give one's own opinions

发表个人意见

speak in tongues

speak in an unknown language during religious worship

（在宗教拜神仪式中）讲不为人知的语言

speaking of

used to introduce a statement or question about a topic recently alluded to

［引入最近谈到过的一个话题］谈起；提到

speaking of cost, can I afford to buy it?.
谈到费用问题，我买得起它吗？。

speak one's mind

express one's feelings or opinions frankly

说出心里话

speak volumes

(of a gesture, circumstance, or object) convey a great deal

（姿态，环境，物体）含义深刻，意味深长

a look that spoke volumes.
一个意味深长的眼神。

speak well (或 ill) of

praise (or criticize)

表扬（或批评）

speak out (或 up)

express one's feelings or opinions frankly and publicly

坦诚地说；公开地说出

the government will be forthright in speaking out against human rights abuses.
政府将会明确声明反对践踏人权。

speak up for

speak in defence or support of

为…辩护；支持

there was no independent body to speak up for press freedoms.
没有任何独立团体支持新闻自由。

speak out

To talk freely and fearlessly, as about a public issue.

说出：勇敢和自由地说出，例如关于公众问题

speak up

To speak loud enough to be audible.

清楚响亮地说：用足以被听见的声音说

To speak without fear or hesitation.

勇敢地说：大胆地说出或毫不犹豫地说

so to speak

In a manner of speaking

恕我直言

can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak.
恕我直言，不能一叶障目不见森林

实用场景例句

I've spoken to the manager about it.: 那件事我已经和经理谈过了。

The President refused to speak to the waiting journalists.: 总统拒绝同等候的记者讲话。

(especially North American English)Can I speak with you for a minute?: 我能跟你谈一会儿吗？

He tried to speak, but for once, his voice had left him...: 他想说话，却一时语塞。

He speaks with a lisp...: 他说话口齿不清。

When speaking to the seminar Mr Franklin spoke of his experience, gained on a recent visit to Trinidad...: 在研讨会上发言的时候，富兰克林先生谈到了他最近游览特立尼达的经历。

He's determined to speak at the Democratic Convention...: 他决定在民主党全国代表大会上发言。

He said it was the job of the Church to speak for the underprivileged...: 他说，为贫困群体说话是教会的义务。

I speak for all 7,000 members of our organization...: 我代表本组织的 7,000 名成员发言。

He doesn't speak English...: 他不会讲英语。

Many of them can speak two or three or more languages.: 他们当中许多人都会说两三门语言，有的人甚至更多。

In the book she speaks of his “social ineptitude” and says he verbally abused her...: 她在书中提到他“缺乏社交技能”，并且说他曾经对她出言不逊。

St Paul speaks of the body as the 'temple of the Holy Spirit'.: 圣保罗把身体描述为“圣神的宫殿”。

He is not speaking to his mother because of her friendship with his ex-wife...: 因为母亲和前妻仍旧保持着友好的关系，他便不再和母亲说话。

The co-stars are still not speaking.: 两位联袂主演的明星仍然互不理睬。

His behaviour spoke of an early maturity...: 他的举止流露出早熟的痕迹。

The length of the car and the high polish of its fittings both spoke of money...: 长车身和高档配置无不象征着财富。

...the figures speak for themselves — low order books, bleak prospects at home and a worsening outlook for exports...: 这些数字本身就说明了问题——订单订购量低，国内销售前景惨淡，出口形势日趋恶化。

The results speak for themselves.: 结局不言自明。

'We're not blaming you,' Kate said. 'Speak for yourself,' Boris muttered.: “我们没有怪你，”凯特说。“也就是你这么想，”鲍里斯嘟囔道。

She'd probably drop some comment about her 'fiancé' into the conversation so that he'd think she was already spoken for...: 她可能会在谈话的时候不着痕迹地对她的“未婚夫”作些评论，这样他便会认为她已经名花有主了。

By December last year most of the resources had been spoken for.: 去年 12 月之前，绝大多数的资源就被预订了。

They have no weaponry to speak of...: 他们没有什么武器值得炫耀。

'Any fresh developments?' — 'Nothing to speak of.': “有什么新进展了吗？”——“谈不上什么新进展。”

This move caused consternation among universities and the government, not to speak of the students affected.: 这个举措在大学和政府里造成了恐慌，更不用说受到影响的学生们了。

Both spoke highly of the Russian president...: 双方均盛赞俄罗斯总统。

It seemed she found it difficult to speak ill of anyone.: 她似乎觉得说别人的坏话很难。

I ought not to tell you but I will, since you're in the family, so to speak...: 我本来不该告诉你的，但我还是要这么做，因为好歹你是家里的一员。

The five countries have now all passed, so to speak, their entry test.: 可以说，这5个国家现在都已经通过了入门考试。

For a long time her mother and her grandmother had hardly been on speaking terms.: 很久以来，她的母亲和外婆两人之间几乎不怎么说话。