Verb

(en verb)

To hold up a claim emphatically.

(I am defending her; see a similar example in the context below for comparison.)

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist . Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

To demand continually that something happen or be done.

To stand (on); to rest (upon); to lean (upon).

* 1709 , Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis

Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.

Verb

To communicate with one's voice, to say words out loud.

* , chapter=13

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them.}}

To have a conversation.

(by extension) To communicate or converse by some means other than orally, such as writing or facial expressions.

To deliver a message to a group; to deliver a speech.

To be able to communicate in a language.

To utter.

* 1611 , (Authorized King James Version) (Bible translation), 9:5:

And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby-Dick) :

There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.

(informal, transitive, sometimes, humorous) To understand (as though it were a language).

To produce a sound; to sound.

* Shakespeare

Make all our trumpets speak .

(archaic) To address; to accost; to speak to.

* Bible, Ecclus. xiii. 6

[He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.

* Emerson

Each village senior paused to scan / And speak the lovely caravan.