[f. SPEECHIFY v.: see -FICATION.]
1. An instance or occasion of speech-making; a speech, oration, harangue.
1809. Spirit Public Jrnls., XIII. 150. Very useful for just seasoning all public speechifications.
1824. Southey, Sir T. More (1831), I. 361. Quarterly and Annual Meetings, Preachers from a distance, Speechifications.
1851. Huxley, in L. Huxley, Life (1900), I. vii. 89. I made a speechification of some length … about a new animal.
2. The action of making speeches; oratory.
1792. Marlyand Gaz., 6 Dec., 2/2. Not succumb under the ponderocity of their verbosity, should it consist of speechification alone, unescorted by ratiocination.
1825. Lockhart, in Scott’s Fam. Lett. (1894), II. 339. Would not he be a goose to indulge Wordsworth with speechification [etc.]?
1853. W. J. Conybeare, Ess. Eccles. & Soc. (1855), 94. Lectures here, addresses there, and speechification everywhere.
1877. Symonds, Renaiss. It., II. 528. The fifteenth century was the golden age of speechification.
