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Bespeak   /bɪspˈik/   Listen
verb
Bespeak  v. t.  (past bespoke, archaic bespake; past part. bespoken; pres. part. bespeaking)  
1.
To speak or arrange for beforehand; to order or engage against a future time; as, to bespeak goods, a right, or a favor. "Concluding, naturally, that to gratify his avarice was to bespeak his favor."
2.
To show beforehand; to foretell; to indicate. "(They) bespoke dangers... in order to scare the allies."
3.
To betoken; to show; to indicate by external marks or appearances. "When the abbot of St. Martin was born, he had so little the figure of a man that it bespoke him rather a monster."
4.
To speak to; to address. (Poetic) "He thus the queen bespoke."



Bespeak  v. i.  (past bespoke, archaic bespake; past part. bespoken; pres. part. bespeaking)  To speak. (Obs.)



noun
Bespeak  n.  A bespeaking. Among actors, a benefit (when a particular play is bespoken.) "The night of her bespeak."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bespeak" Quotes from Famous Books



... conversation that, so long as my set of articles on various operas, which provisionally closes with the "Flying Dutchman", is going on in the Neue Zeitschrift, it seems to me more becoming not to bespeak any other musical productions of mine. None the less do I consider it desirable and quite in the interest of our cause that, for the future, the more important productions, especially the works of R. Schumann, Hiller, Gade, etc., ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... of my cheek, And exposes my desperate love; Nor needs it that death should bespeak The hurt no remeid ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... patients, and now and then, very gently, to the lady, Dr. Dare. He was always pliable to the influence of a woman's voice or to womanly manner. He had, in the presence of women, the quick responsiveness and sudden change of color and sensitiveness of intonation which bespeak the man whose highest graces and lowest faults are likely to be owing ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... birds, That peck along the road, regard him not. He travels on, and in his face, his step, His gait, is one expression: every limb, His look and bending figure, all bespeak 5 A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought.—He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he is one by whom All effort seems forgotten; one to whom Long patience hath [1] such mild composure given, 10 That ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... rien faire dans la cuisine sans le beurre." You ought to know, by the by, that the Alose, something like our mackerel in flavour, is a large and delicious fish; and that we were always anxious to bespeak it at the table-d'hote at Rouen. Extricated from the lake of butter in which it floats, when brought upon table, it forms not only a rich, but a very ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin


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