oration
/ɒˈreɪʃ(ə)n
/noun
1A formal speech, especially one given on a ceremonial occasion: Pericles' famous funeral oration...
- They've done mock interviews, funeral orations, series of imagined letters from the famous person to a grandchild, or from an invented friend to the famous person.
- Despite their differences, the two men did not become enemies; they respected each other's research, and in 1832 Geoffroy gave one of the orations at Cuvier's funeral.
- I want to suggest that in the case of his funeral orations, Derrida writes from within a rhetorical tradition that sometimes includes meaning or signification in its persuasive aims.
Synonyms
speech, address, lecture, talk, homily, sermon, discourse, declamation, recitation, disquisition, peroration, monologue, valedictory, harangue, tirade, diatribe, rant;
North American salutatory
informal spiel
rare allocution, predication
1.1 [mass noun] The style or manner in which an oration is given: there is nothing quite like his messianic oration...
- It spirals from crisp oration into stream-of-consciousness babble and finally into gibberish.
- They were enraptured by Mr Durai's fiery oration.
- Leo McIntire then took over her mantle but his eloquent oration and superlatives went over the head of Brendan Bradley, who had to ask me what some of the big words meant.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting a prayer): from Latin oratio(n-) 'discourse, prayer', from orare 'speak, pray'.