speech的词源

英文词源

speech: speech: [OE] 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.
=> speak
speech (n.): Old English spæc "act of speaking; power of speaking; manner of speaking; statement, discourse, narrative, formal utterance; language," variant of spræc, from Proto-Germanic *sprek-, *spek- (cognates: Danish sprog, Old Saxon spraca, Old Frisian spreke, Dutch spraak, Old High German sprahha, German Sprache "speech;" see speak (v.))

The spr- forms were extinct in English by 1200. Meaning "address delivered to an audience" first recorded 1580s.
And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak,
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.

[James Russell Lowell, "A Fable for Critics," 1848]

同源词：speak

该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：speech 词源，speech 含义。

构成 speak 的名词形式，引申诸相关词义。