Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To be or give a sign of; indicate. See Synonyms at indicate.
- v. To engage, hire, or order in advance. See Synonyms at book.
- v. To request: bespeak a favor.
- v. To foretell; portend: fearful weapons that bespeak great loss of life.
- v. Archaic To speak to; address.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To speak for beforehand; engage in advance; make arrangements for: as, to bespeak a place in a theater.
- To stipulate, solicit, or ask for, as a favor: as, to bespeak a calm hearing.
- To forebode; foretell.
- To speak to; address.
- To betoken; show; indicate, as by signs.
- To speak up or out; exclaim; speak.
- n. Among actors in Great Britain, a benefit: so called from the bespeaking of patronage by the actors, or of the play by the patrons. See benefit, 5.
Wiktionary
- v. To order or reserve in advance.
- n. A request for a specific performance, by a patron.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To speak or arrange for beforehand; to order or engage against a future time.
- v. To show beforehand; to foretell; to indicate.
- v. To betoken; to show; to indicate by external marks or appearances.
- v. To speak to; to address.
- v. To speak.
- n. A bespeaking. Among actors, a benefit (when a particular play is bespoken.)
WordNet 3.0
- v. be a signal for or a symptom of
- v. express the need or desire for; ask for
Etymologies
- Middle English bispeken, to speak out, from Old English besprecan, to speak about.
Examples
“The public duties to which he was often called bespeak his ability, and the confidence reposed in him by the leading men of his day.”
“Ma’aruf was silent92 and did not again bespeak him till he reached the Desert Quarter and casting him down there, went away and left him in that horrible place. —”
“Both titles bespeak what our nation claims to stand for in education: a passion for imparting knowledge to all our children, equity for all students 'performance, and dedication and commitment from instructors to the ideals of universal education across the country.”
“bespeak" - "commission to be made," according to my Oxford dictionary-a burger.”
“It was Mr. Crummles 'habit to give a benefit performance, commonly called a "bespeak," to any member of his company fortunate enough to have either a birthday or any other anniversary of sufficient importance to challenge attention on the posters, and not long after Nicholas entered the company, this honor fell to the lot of one of the prominent actresses, Miss Snevellicci.”
“And to come to a later instance, the reader may bear in mind that before that ornament of Mr. Crummles's company, Miss Snevellici, took her benefit or "bespeak" at the Portsmouth Theatre, she, in company with Nicholas Nickleby, and, for propriety's sake, the Infant”
A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character
“bespeak," that you can select and arrange to your own taste; that it is not "to take or to leave" at your peril and as it offers itself.”
“These tangible things bespeak an underlying reality.”
“But Alder said the one-day spike in violence does not necessarily bespeak a larger trend.”
The Washington Post: Three killed in weekend outbreak of violence in Southeast D.C.
“* But taking your own, perfectly good weapon, or a quantity of red pigment, or even a usable animal jawbone, and giving it away to be buried alongside a lifeless corpse seems to bespeak some sort of belief that the dead person is, or sometime soon will be, alive in some other form or some other place.”
Lists
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