Friday, February 27, 2009

declaim

declaim \di-KLEYM\, verb:

to orate; to speak in a loud and emotional manner

What is the clue to understanding a country rife with despair and disrepair, which nonetheless moved a Mughal emperor to declaim, "If on earth there be paradise of bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this ...?"
-- Shashi Tharoor, India: From Midnight to Millennium
The heavies declaim prolix monologues on evil in a godless universe.
-- Robert Polito, Trackers, New York Times, March 29, 1998

c 1385, from Latin declamare, from de- intensifying prefix + clamare "to cry, shout". At first in England, spelled declame, but altered under influence of claim.

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