Noun

(wikipedia speech)

(label) The faculty of uttering articulate sounds or words; the ability to speak or to use vocalizations to communicate.

* , chapter=12

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech . In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.}}

*

(label) A session of speaking; a long oral message given publicly usually by one person.

* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)

The constant design of these orators, in all their speeches , was to drive some one particular point.

*

A style of speaking.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Subtle effects , passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}

A dialect or language.

* Bible, (w) iii. 6

people of a strange speech

Talk; mention; rumour.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

The dukedid of me demand / What was the speech among the Londoners / Concerning the French journey.

Noun

(en noun)

The sense of touch; feeling.

*

Did you suppose that I could not make myself sensible to tact as well as sight?

* J. Le Conte

Now, sight is a very refined tact .

(music) The stroke in beating time.

Sensitive mental touch; peculiar skill or faculty; nice perception or discernment; ready power of appreciating and doing what is required by circumstances.

*

He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin.

*

A tact' which surpassed the '''tact''' of her sex as much as the '''tact''' of her sex surpassed the ' tact of ours.

The ability to deal with embarrassing situations carefully and without doing or saying anything that will annoy or upset other people; careful consideration in dealing with others to avoid giving offense; the ability to say the right thing.

By the use of tact , she was able to calm her jealous husband.

I used tact when I told my fat uncle that his extra weight made him look better.

(psychology) A verbal operant which is controlled by a nonverbal stimulus (such as an object, event, or property of an object) and is maintained by nonspecific social reinforcement (praise).

* 2013 , Jacob L. Gewirtz, William M. Kurtines, Jacob L. Lamb, Intersections With Attachment

Skinner (1957) saw such tacts as responses that are reinforced socially.