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Anna Karenina vocabulary
488 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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declaim
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► definition
Definition:1. 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 speaking2. To speak for rhetorical display; to speak pompously, noisily, or theatrically; to make an empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant.Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
► uses
Uses:
Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” 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.
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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“‘I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,
And by his eyes I know a youth in love,’”
declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Everything is before you.”
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Threats to enlist that winter were always declaimed like Brinker's, with a grinding of back teeth and a flashing of eyes;
John Knowles. A Separate Peace, p.155 (1959)
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I had time, watching him declaim, to reflect on the oddity of sitting on a rock in a Scottish pool, listening to Gaelic love songs, with a large dead fish in my lap.
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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“Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!” Prince Vasili sternly declaimed, looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had anything to say to the contrary.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: 12 (Book Twelve)
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'He is a prodigy,' he said at last. 'He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, 'for the guidance of the cause intrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.' 'Who says that?' I asked. 'Lots of them,' he replied.
Joseph Conrad. The Heart of Darkness
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