bespeak

USbi-SPEEK/bɪˈspik/

Formsbespeaks, bespeaking, bespoke, bespoken

7 meanings of bespeak

1
verbtransitive
To be a sign of something, showing, indicating, or suggesting it; also, to depict it, foretell it, or allude to it.
The worn steps and faded paint bespeak a building that has seen better days.
Her calm reply bespoke years of experience with difficult customers.
Similarindicate, suggest, show, reveal, signify
Note
In this sense the speaker is a thing, not a person: an act bespeaks kindness, a gaze bespeaks pity, and in Emerson Hough's The Purchase Price a fresh skin and well-developed figure bespeak a man kept fit by exercise. The subject is a deed, a feature or a look; the object is the quality it reveals. Locke uses the archaic past bespake: the infant abbot's shape "bespake him rather a monster."
2
verbtransitive
To arrange for something in advance by speaking for it, engaging it, ordering it, or reserving it.
Arriving at the inn after dark, she bespoke supper and a room facing the garden.
Wealthy patrons would bespeak a portrait months before the artist was free to paint it.
Similarorder, reserve, book, commission
Note
Here the speaking is done in advance, the way a traveler secures a meal: in Dickens's The Haunted House, the narrator bespoke breakfast from the innkeeper before broaching the subject of the deserted house. Scott's Ivanhoe stretches it to goodwill, where gratifying a man's avarice is a way to bespeak his favor, securing it ahead of need. The past is bespoke; the participle, bespoken.
3
verbtransitive
To ask for something as one would ask a favor, or to set it as a condition.
Allow me to bespeak your indulgence for a few minutes while I explain the delay.
In his letter to the judge, he bespoke leniency for his younger brother.
Similarrequest, solicit
Note
What is asked for here is something only another person can grant: one bespeaks a calm hearing, a listener's patience in advance, a judge's leniency. That is the line between this sense and the "order in advance" meaning, where what is secured is a meal, a room or a portrait.
4
verbintransitive
To say something aloud, whether by speaking, by speaking up or out, or by exclaiming.
Similarspeak

Less common meanings

5
verbarchaicformaltransitive
To speak about a subject, telling of it or discussing it.
From the pulpit the parson bespoke the town's sins at tiresome length.
After dinner the guests begged the old explorer to bespeak the frozen lands he had crossed.
Note
A meaning that matches the word's own parts: Old English besprecan, be- plus speak, meant "to speak about." In Swift's Examiner, dangers are bespoken to scare the allies. Today the sense lives on in formal or deliberately old-fashioned prose; in ordinary writing, talk about, discuss or tell of does the same work without the antique ring.
6
verbarchaictransitive
To speak to someone, addressing words directly to them.
The stranger reined in his horse and bespoke the travelers on the road.
Spurring his horse, he galloped down to the shore and bespoke them.
1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”
Note
A storyteller's verb that takes its listener as a direct object, with no to: "he thus the Queen bespoke," in Dryden's Ovid. Norma Lorre Goodrich keeps it in her retelling of Beowulf in The Medieval Myths, where a rider "galloped down to the shore and bespoke them." Outside verse and legend, address or speak to is the natural choice.
7
nounarchaic
A patron's request for a particular performance, or the benefit performance put on in answer to the request.
The squire arranged a bespeak, choosing the comedy he wished the company to perform.
Her bespeak drew the town's leading families, and the proceeds went to the actress herself.
Note
A theater word made from the "order in advance" meaning of the verb: patrons bespeak a play, and the night they choose is the bespeak. In Nicholas Nickleby the word has to be explained to Nicholas himself, as a performer's benefit night, when her friends and patrons pick the play. It is archaic now, and belongs to that world of patrons and benefit nights.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English bespeken (bispeken), from Old English *bespecan, besprecan ("to speak about, speak against, accuse, claim at law, complain"), from Proto-West Germanic *bisprekan ("to discuss, blame") and Proto-Germanic *bisprekaną ("to speak about, discuss, blame"); it is equivalent to be- + speak. Related words include Scots bespeke ("to beseech, speak or negotiate with"), Saterland Frisian bispreke and West Frisian besprekke ("to discuss"), Dutch bespreken and German besprechen ("to discuss, review").