Speaking (root: speak)

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: speak=ing

CIDE DICTIONARY

Speaking, a. 

•  Uttering speech; used for conveying speech; as, man is a speaking animal; a speaking tube.  [1913 Webster]
•  Seeming to be capable of speech; hence, lifelike; as, a speaking likeness.  [1913 Webster]

A speaking acquaintance, a slight acquaintance with a person, or one which merely permits the exchange of salutations and remarks on indifferent subjects. -- Speaking trumpet, an instrument somewhat resembling a trumpet, by which the sound of the human voice may be so intensified as to be conveyed to a great distance. -- Speaking tube, a tube for conveying speech, especially from one room to another at a distance. -- To be on speaking terms, to be slightly acquainted.

Speaking, n. 

•  The act of uttering words.  [1913 Webster]
•  Public declamation; oratory.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Speaking, n. & adj.
--n. the act or an instance of uttering words etc.
--adj.
1 that speaks; capable of articulate speech.
2 (of a portrait) lifelike; true to its subject (a speaking likeness).
3 (in comb.) speaking or capable of speaking a specified foreign language (French-speaking).
4 with a reference or from a point of view specified (roughly speaking; professionally speaking).

Idiom

on speaking terms (foll. by with)
1 slightly acquainted.
2 on friendly terms.
speaking acquaintance
1 a person one knows slightly.
2 this degree of familiarity. speaking clock Brit. a telephone service giving the correct time in words. speaking-trumpet hist. an instrument for making the voice carry. speaking-tube a tube for conveying the voice from one room, building, etc., to another.

THESAURUS

Speaking

ESP, accents, answer, articulate, breathing, chatter, comment, commerce, communication, communion, congress, connection, contact, conversation, converse, correspondence, dealing, dealings, debating, declamation, demagogism, discourse, elocution, eloquence, eloquent, exchange, faithful, forensics, free-speaking, free-spoken, gab, homiletics, information, interaction, interchange, intercommunication, intercommunion, intercourse, interplay, language, lecturing, lifelike, linguistic act, linguistic intercourse, living, locution, loud-speaking, loud-spoken, message, natural, oral communication, oratory, outspoken, palaver, parol, parole, phonation, plain-speaking, plain-spoken, platform oratory, prattle, public speaking, pyrotechnics, rabble-rousing, rapping, realistic, reply, response, rhetoric, sequence of phonemes, social intercourse, soft-speaking, soft-spoken, speech, speech act, speech circuit, speech situation, speechcraft, speechification, speeching, speechmaking, string, stump speaking, talk, talkative, talking, telepathy, the spoken word, to the life, tongue, touch, traffic, truck, true to life, true to nature, true-speaking, two-way communication, utterance, utterance string, verbalization, vocable, voice, well-spoken, word, word of mouth, wordcraft, words, yakkety-yak, yakking

ROGET THESAURUS

Speaking

Speech

N speech, faculty of speech, locution, talk, parlance, verbal intercourse, prolation, oral communication, word of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle, effusion, oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration, speechifying, soliloquy, allocution, conversation, salutatory : screed: valedictory, oratory, elocution, eloquence, rhetoric, declamation, grandiloquence, multiloquence, burst of eloquence, facundity, flow of words, command of words, command of language, copia verborum, power of speech, gift of the gab, usus loquendi, speaker, spokesman, prolocutor, interlocutor, mouthpiece, Hermes, orator, oratrix, oratress, Demosthenes, Cicero, rhetorician, stump orator, platform orator, speechmaker, patterer, improvisatore, speaking, spoken, oral, lingual, phonetic, not written, unwritten, outspoken, eloquent, elocutionary, oratorical, rhetorical, declamatory, grandiloquent, talkative, Ciceronian, nuncupative, Tullian, orally, by word of mouth, viva voce, from the lips of, quoth he, said he, action is eloquence, pour the full tide of eloquence along, she speaks poignards and every word stabs, speech is but broken light upon the depth of the u, to try thy eloquence now 'tis time.