speaker
UK /ˈspiːkə/ · US /ˈspikɚ/ noun, proper noun
Forms speakers
- noun One who speaks. “There were three different speakers, but I couldn't make out their accents.”
- noun Loudspeaker. “She lost her hearing after standing too close to the speaker at the festival.”
- noun Speakerphone. “you're on speaker”
- noun (politics) The chair or presiding officer of certain legislative bodies, such as the U.K. House of Commons or the U.S. House of Representatives.
- noun One who makes a speech to an audience. “hired speaker; motivational speaker”
- noun (US) A book containing passages of text for use in speeches.
- noun (especially in linguistics) The producer of a given utterance, whether speech or text.
- noun (poetry) The literary character uttering the lyrics of a poem or song, as opposed to the author writing the words of that character.
- proper noun A surname
Synonyms
speechmaker orator presenter announcer talker utterer verbalizer verbaliser loudspeaker speaker unit loudspeaker system speaker system
Etymology
From Middle English speker, spekere, an alteration (with change of suffix) of Old English speca, spreca (“speaker”), from Proto-Germanic *sprekô (“speaker”), equivalent to speak + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Spreeker (“speaker”), West Frisian sprekker (“speaker”), Dutch spreker (“speaker”), German Low German Spreker (“speaker”), German Sprecher (“speaker”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who speaks. Specifically: (a) One who utters or pronounces a discourse; usually, one who utters a speech in public; as, the man is a good speaker, or a bad speaker.
- noun A book of selections for declamation. [U. S.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “speaker”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details