declamatory

American  

[dih-klam-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] / dɪˈklæm əˌtɔr i, -ˌtoʊr i /

adjective

1. pertaining to or characterized by declamation.

2. merely oratorical or rhetorical; stilted.

   a pompous, declamatory manner of speech.

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declamatory British  

/ dɪˈklæmətərɪ, -trɪ /

adjective

1. relating to or having the characteristics of a declamation

2. merely rhetorical; empty and bombastic

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Other Word Forms

• declamatorily adverb
• nondeclamatory adjective
• superdeclamatory adjective
• undeclamatory adjective

Etymology

Origin of declamatory

1575–85; < Latin dēclāmātōrius, equivalent to dēclāmā ( re ) ( declaim ) + -tōrius -tory ¹

Explanation

If you say something declamatory, it's full of passion and bluster, like your declamatory speech in debate club about the poor nutritional quality of your school's lunches. Things that are declamatory are strongly felt and expressed with intensity, and they're usually spoken aloud (and loudly). Sometimes this adjective has negative connotations, implying bluster and bombast: "Your essay is so long and declamatory, I felt like I was being shouted at by a showoff." Something declamatory can be called a declamation. The Latin root, declamare, means "to practice public speaking."

Example Sentences

Hilson’s performance is of a different register than most of the rest of the cast — haltingly realistic in an otherwise declamatory play.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 7, 2023

The draft feels like a café napkin sketch: schematic and brutally declamatory — the dialogue a parody of existentialist theater shouted through a bullhorn.

From Salon • Mar. 5, 2023

“Romeo and Juliet” was tackled with a youthful vigor and violence that proved shocking to those expecting the customary declamatory elegance.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 3, 2022

An inheritor of Drakeo the Ruler, who was killed this month — listen to their collaboration on “Ruth’s Chris Freestyle” — Remble is crisp and declamatory and, most disarmingly, deeply calm.

From New York Times • Dec. 31, 2021

The generici or common-places were sententious maxims, descriptions, outpourings of emotion, humorous and fanciful diatribes, declarations of passion, love-laments, ravings, reproaches, declamatory outbursts, which could be employed ad libitum whenever the situation rendered them appropriate.

From The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the First by Gozzi, Carlo