speechifying

English

Verb

speechifying

1. present participle and gerund of speechify

Noun

speechifying (plural speechifyings)

1. The art of making speeches; rhetoric or oratory.
2. The act of speaking, especially at excessive length.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VIII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 174:

     "I thank you," said Lorraine, "for reinforcing my favourite theory, which maintains that a love of talking is the great feature of the present time. Steam is not half so much its characteristic as speechifying."

   • 2007 December 9, Scott Timberg, quoting Annalee Newitz, “The descent of a sci-fi guru”, in Los Angeles Times‎:

     “To literary readers, the books look cheesy, sexist in a hairy-chest, gold-chain kind of way. His [Robert Heinlein's] stuff hasn’t stood the test of time,” because of characters’ windy speechifying and their frontier optimism.