unspeak

American

[uhn-speek] / ʌnˈspik /

verb (used with object)

Obsolete.

unspoke, unspoken, unspeaking

to recant; unsay.

unspeak British

/ ʌnˈspiːk /

verb

an obsolete word for unsay

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of unspeak

First recorded in 1595–1605; un- ² + speak

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In public life, totalitarianism has corrupted language by its tendency, as Steiner puts it, to "unspeak the actual past" while conjugating its verbs only in the "depersonalized present" and "Utopian future."

From Time Magazine Archive

Observers have said that the "unspeak able hardships" undergone by Senator Borah will place Mr. Hoover deeply in his debt.

From Time Magazine Archive

And it started a hope like a lightning-streak That I might go to him—say for a week - And afford you right To put me away, and your vows unspeak.

From Satires of Circumstance, lyrics and reveries with miscellaneous pieces by Hardy, Thomas

Spite of all that, I might refuse to unspeak my words, which I never did afore, if it had not been that I wronged the man.

From Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale by Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023