Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A recitation delivered as an exercise in rhetoric or elocution.
  • noun Vehement oratory.
  • noun A speech marked by strong feeling; a tirade.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A specially close or successful union of tones with words, as in a song or aria.
  • noun A work in which the text is read or spoken while a musical accompaniment or comment is played. Also called melodrama. See melodrama, 2.
  • noun The act or art of declaiming or making rhetorical harangues in public; especially, the delivery of a speech or an exercise in oratory or elocution, as by a student of a college, etc.: as, a public declamation; the art of declamation.
  • noun Specifically In vocal music, the proper rhetorical enunciation of the words, especially in recitative and in dramatic music.
  • noun A public harangue or set speech; an oration.
  • noun Pompous, high-sounding verbiage in speech or writing; stilted oratory.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges.
  • noun A set or harangue; declamatory discourse.
  • noun Pretentious rhetorical display, with more sound than sense.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students.
  • noun A set or harangue; declamatory discourse.
  • noun Pretentious rhetorical display, with more sound than sense; as, mere declamation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun recitation of a speech from memory with studied gestures and intonation as an exercise in elocution or rhetoric
  • noun vehement oratory

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English declamacioun, from Latin dēclāmātiō, dēclāmātiōn-, from dēclāmātus, past participle of dēclāmāre, to declaim; see declaim.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French déclamation, from Latin dēclāmātiō, dēclāmātiōnem, from dēclāmō, dēclāmāre; see declaim

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Examples

  • A flush overspread the face of De Warenne at this apostrophe; and forcing a smile, "This strict notion of right," said he, "is very well in declamation, but how would it crop the wings of conquerors, and shorten the warrior's arm, did they measure by this rule!"

    The Scottish Chiefs 1875

  • The burden of his declamation was the oppressive and unlawful system of taxation devised by Great Britain against her

    The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief Morrison Heady 1872

  • And this coolness often prevents our being carried away by a stream of eloquence, which the prejudiced mind terms declamation -- a pomp of words.

    Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1778

  • The singing is a kind of declamation, with long slurs, frequent staccatos, and abrupt endings.

    The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir John M. Garvan

  • Yet it may be made a question, whether this romantic kind of declamation, has much effect on the conduct of those, who leave, for a season, the crowded cities in which they were bred.

    Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1778

  • Frazer writes, "Here is what the last scene in the film meant, he explained, his four - or five-word declamation a stark and numbing negation of the gentle, almost languid spirit of the film, which invites the audience to its own discovery.

    unknown title 2009

  • Frazer writes, "Here is what the last scene in the film meant, he explained, his four - or five-word declamation a stark and numbing negation of the gentle, almost languid spirit of the film, which invites the audience to its own discovery.

    unknown title 2009

  • Musically it unfolds far too sedately, with vocal declamation over smoothly contoured orchestral ostinatos, pitched somewhere between recent Philip Glass and the John Adams of The Death of Klinghoffer, as the default musical idiom.

    Two Boys - review 2011

  • Musically it unfolds far too sedately, with vocal declamation over smoothly contoured orchestral ostinatos, pitched somewhere between recent Philip Glass and the John Adams of The Death of Klinghoffer, as the default musical idiom.

    Two Boys - review 2011

  • Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation...

    Edwin Eisendrath: It's the Democracy, Stupid! Edwin Eisendrath 2011

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