Definition of "speech" []

• The faculty or act of speaking. (noun)
• The faculty or act of expressing or describing thoughts, feelings, or perceptions by the articulation of words. (noun)
• Something spoken; an utterance. (noun)
• Vocal communication; conversation. (noun)
• A talk or public address: "The best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance” ( Ruth Gordon). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At issue is whether or not the FEC went too far in interpreting the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act when it ruled Hillary: The Movie to be campaign speech, advocacy about a particular candidate, instead of the allowed political speech, advocacy on a topic, thus limiting the \ "freedom of speech\" of corporations."
• "Within speech acts, Austin distinguished among locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary levels, but speech act theory has been devoted almost exclusively to the illocutionary level, so that ˜speech act™ and ˜illocutionary act™ are in practice synonymous terms."
• "However, a speech sound localized in the brain, even when associated with the particular movements of the “speech organs” that are required to produce it, is very far from being an element of language."