DECLAIM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does declaim mean? 

• DECLAIM (verb)
  The verb DECLAIM has 2 senses:

1. recite in elocution

2. speak against in an impassioned manner

  Familiarity information: DECLAIM used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DECLAIM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they declaim    ... he / she / it declaims   
Past simple: declaimed   
Past participle: declaimed   
-ing form: declaiming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Recite in elocution

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

declaim; recite

Hypernyms (to "declaim" is one way to...):

do; execute; perform (carry out or perform an action)

"Declaim" entails doing...:

mouth; speak; talk; utter; verbalise; verbalize (express in speech)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "declaim"):

elocute (declaim in an elocutionary manner)

perorate (deliver an oration in grandiloquent style)

scan (read metrically)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

declamation (recitation of a speech from memory with studied gestures and intonation as an exercise in elocution or rhetoric)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Speak against in an impassioned manner

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

declaim; inveigh

Context example:

he declaimed against the wasteful ways of modern society

Hypernyms (to "declaim" is one way to...):

protest (utter words of protest)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody PP

Derivation:

declamation (vehement oratory)

 Context examples 

But the interruption, and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)