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''declaim'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

declaim - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

declaim (third-person singular simple present declaims, present participle declaiming, simple past and past participle declaimed)

  • (intransitive) To recite, e.g., poetry, in a theatrical way; to speak for rhetorical display; to speak pompously, noisily, or theatrically; bemouth; to make an empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant.
    • ✤ Grenville seized the opportunity to declaim on the repeal of the stamp act.1
  • (intransitive) To speak rhetorically; to make a formal speech or oration; specifically, to recite a speech, poem, etc., in public as a rhetorical exercise; to practice public speaking.
    • ✤ The students declaim twice a week.
  • (transitive) To object to something vociferously; to rail against in speech.
    • ✤ Their love had gone too far on occasion: praying to those pictures and then sliding to worship those drawings as pagans had once worshiped idols. Many priests declaimed the practice and warned that the people were violating God’s first commandment against false idols.2
    • ✤ * Declaiming such practices, Baskaran writes: ‘The flow of the film would not be affected in the least if song sequences were excised, wholly or partly’*3
    • ✤ American leaders found it difficult to attack Soviet injustices and demand equality and the rule of law worldwide when African Americans endured systematic segregation throughout much of the nation. Facing Soviet propaganda that declaimed such hypocrisy, and fearful it would alter the status of the Cold War enabling the Soviets to lure African, Asian, and Middle Eastern states into their orbit […]4
  • (transitive, proscribed) To disclaim, disavow.
    • ✤ He now declaimed having intended any thing disrespectful to the Senate in the expression he had used.5
    • ✤ Unless these conditions are fulfilled we declaim responsibility.6
    • ✤ Of course, a small minority has always declaimed any religious affiliation, and some agnostics have been prominent figures in American public life.7
    • 2018 July 18, “Ekiti Poll: PDP declaims involvement in votes buying”, in CEOAfrica:

Etymology

From Middle French declamer, from Latin dēclāmō.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /dɪˈkleɪm/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪm

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [et al.], →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1994, Lawrence Murray, Lonely is the Pioneer: ↩

  3. 1996, Lalitha Gopalan, “Indian Cinema”, in Jill Nelmes, editor, An Introduction to Film Studies: ↩

  4. 2014, Cameron D. Lippard, Charles A. Gallagher, editors, Race and Racism in the United States: ↩

  5. 1835 February 20, “Mr. Adams and the French”, in North River Times: ↩

  6. 1928 September, “The Cooperation of the Pharmacist and the Wholesale Druggist (advertisement)”, in Druggist’s Circular, page 77: ↩

  7. 2009, Christopher McKnight Nichols, “The “New” No-Religionists”, in Culture: ↩