verb for give a speech

Words for Speaking: 30 Speech Verbs in English (With Audio)

Speaking is amazing, don’t you think?

Words and phrases come out of our mouths — they communicate meaning, and we humans understand each other (well, sometimes)!

But there are countless different ways of speaking.

Sometimes, we express ourselves by speaking quietly, loudly, angrily, unclearly or enthusiastically.

And sometimes, we can express ourselves really well without using any words at all — just sounds.

When we describe what someone said, of course we can say, “He said …” or “She said …”

But there are so many alternatives to “say” that describe the many different WAYS of speaking.

Here are some of the most common ones.

Words for talking loudly in English

Shout / yell / scream.

Sometimes you just need to say something LOUDLY!

Maybe you’re shouting at your kids to get off the climbing frame and come inside before the storm starts.

Or perhaps you’re just one of those people who just shout a lot of the time when you speak. And that’s fine. I’ve got a friend like that. He says it’s because he’s the youngest kid in a family full of brothers and sisters — he had to shout to make sure people heard him. And he still shouts.

Yelling is a bit different. When you yell, you’re probably angry or surprised or even in pain. Yelling is a bit shorter and more “in-the-moment.”

Screaming is similar but usually higher in pitch and full of fear or pain or total fury, like when you’ve just seen a ghost or when you’ve dropped a box of bricks on your foot.

“Stop yelling at me! I’m sorry! I made a mistake, but there’s no need to shout!”

Bark / Bellow / Roar

When I hear these words, I always imagine something like this:

These verbs all feel rather masculine, and you imagine them in a deep voice.

I always think of an army general walking around the room telling people what to do.

That’s probably why we have the phrase “to bark orders at someone,” which means to tell people what to do in an authoritative, loud and aggressive way.

“I can’t stand that William guy. He’s always barking orders at everyone!”

Shriek / Squeal / Screech

Ooooohhh …. These do not sound nice.

These are the sounds of a car stopping suddenly.

Or the sound a cat makes when you tread on her tail.

Or very overexcited kids at a birthday party after eating too much sugar.

These verbs are high pitched and sometimes painful to hear.

“When I heard her shriek , I ran to the kitchen to see what it was. Turned out it was just a mouse.”

“As soon as she opened the box and saw the present, she let out a squeal of delight!”

Wailing is also high pitched, but not so full of energy.

It’s usually full of sadness or even anger.

When I think of someone wailing, I imagine someone completely devastated — very sad — after losing someone they love.

You get a lot of wailing at funerals.

“It’s such a mess!” she wailed desperately. “It’ll take ages to clear up!”

Words for speaking quietly in English

When we talk about people speaking in quiet ways, for some reason, we often use words that we also use for animals.

In a way, this is useful, because we can immediately get a feel for the sound of the word.

This is the sound that snakes make.

Sometimes you want to be both quiet AND angry.

Maybe someone in the theatre is talking and you can’t hear what Hamlet’s saying, so you hiss at them to shut up.

Or maybe you’re hanging out with Barry and Naomi when Barry starts talking about Naomi’s husband, who she split up with last week.

Then you might want to hiss this information to Barry so that Naomi doesn’t hear.

But Naomi wasn’t listening anyway — she was miles away staring into the distance.

“You’ll regret this!” he hissed , pointing his finger in my face.

To be fair, this one’s a little complicated.

Whimpering is a kind of traumatised, uncomfortable sound.

If you think of a frightened animal, you might hear it make some kind of quiet, weak sound that shows it’s in pain or unhappy.

Or if you think of a kid who’s just been told she can’t have an ice cream.

Those sounds might be whimpers.

“Please! Don’t shoot me!” he whimpered , shielding his head with his arms.

Whispering is when you speak, but you bypass your vocal cords so that your words sound like wind.

In a way, it’s like you’re speaking air.

Which is a pretty cool way to look at it.

This is a really useful way of speaking if you’re into gossiping.

“Hey! What are you whispering about? Come on! Tell us! We’ll have no secrets here!”

Words for speaking negatively in English

Ranting means to speak at length about a particular topic.

However, there’s a bit more to it than that.

Ranting is lively, full of passion and usually about something important — at least important to the person speaking.

Sometimes it’s even quite angry.

We probably see rants most commonly on social media — especially by PEOPLE WHO LOVE USING CAPS LOCK AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!

Ranting always sounds a little mad, whether you’re ranting about something reasonable, like the fact that there’s too much traffic in the city, or whether you’re ranting about something weird, like why the world is going to hell and it’s all because of people who like owning small, brown dogs.

“I tried to talk to George, but he just started ranting about the tax hike.”

“Did you see Jemima’s most recent Facebook rant ? All about how squirrels are trying to influence the election results with memes about Macaulay Culkin.”

Babble / Blabber / Blather / Drone / Prattle / Ramble

These words all have very similar meanings.

First of all, when someone babbles (or blabbers or blathers or drones or prattles or rambles), it means they are talking for a long time.

And probably not letting other people speak.

And, importantly, about nothing particularly interesting or important.

You know the type of person, right?

You run into a friend or someone you know.

All you do is ask, “How’s life?” and five minutes later, you’re still listening to them talking about their dog’s toilet problems.

They just ramble on about it for ages.

These verbs are often used with the preposition “on.”

That’s because “on” often means “continuously” in phrasal verbs .

So when someone “drones on,” it means they just talk for ages about nothing in particular.

“You’re meeting Aunt Thelma this evening? Oh, good luck! Have fun listening to her drone on and on about her horses.”

Groan / Grumble / Moan

These words simply mean “complain.”

There are some small differences, though.

When you groan , you probably don’t even say any words. Instead, you just complain with a sound.

When you grumble , you complain in a sort of angry or impatient way. It’s not a good way to get people to like you.

Finally, moaning is complaining, but without much direction.

You know the feeling, right?

Things are unfair, and stuff isn’t working, and it’s all making life more difficult than it should be.

We might not plan to do anything about it, but it definitely does feel good to just … complain about it.

Just to express your frustration about how unfair it all is and how you’ve been victimised and how you should be CEO by now and how you don’t get the respect you deserve and …

Well, you get the idea.

If you’re frustrated with things, maybe you just need to find a sympathetic ear and have a good moan.

“Pietor? He’s nice, but he does tend to grumble about the local kids playing football on the street.”

Words for speaking unclearly in English

Mumble / murmur / mutter.

These verbs are all very similar and describe speaking in a low and unclear way, almost like you’re speaking to yourself.

Have you ever been on the metro or the bus and seen someone in the corner just sitting and talking quietly and a little madly to themselves?

That’s mumbling (or murmuring or muttering).

What’s the difference?

Good question!

The differences are just in what type of quiet and unclear speaking you’re doing.

When someone’s mumbling , it means they’re difficult to understand. You might want to ask them to speak more clearly.

Murmuring is more neutral. It might be someone praying quietly to themselves, or you might even hear the murmur of voices behind a closed door.

Finally, muttering is usually quite passive-aggressive and has a feeling of complaining to it.

“I could hear him muttering under his breath after his mum told him off.”

How can you tell if someone’s been drinking too much booze (alcohol)?

Well, apart from the fact that they’re in the middle of trying to climb the traffic lights holding a traffic cone and wearing grass on their head, they’re also slurring — their words are all sort of sliding into each other. Like this .

This can also happen if you’re super tired.

“Get some sleep! You’re slurring your words.”

Stammer / Stutter

Th-th-th-this is wh-wh-when you try to g-g-g-get the words ou-ou-out, but it’s dif-dif-dif-difficu-… hard.

For some people, this is a speech disorder, and the person who’s doing it can’t help it.

If you’ve seen the 2010 film The King’s Speech , you’ll know what I’m talking about.

(Also you can let me know, was it good? I didn’t see it.)

This can also happen when you’re frightened or angry or really, really excited — and especially when you’re nervous.

That’s when you stammer your words.

“No … I mean, yeah … I mean no…” Wendy stammered .

Other words for speaking in English

If you drawl (or if you have a drawl), you speak in a slow way, maaakiiing the voowweeel sounds loooongeer thaan noormaal.

Some people think this sounds lazy, but I think it sounds kind of nice and relaxed.

Some regional accents, like Texan and some Australian accents, have a drawl to them.

“He was the first US President who spoke with that Texan drawl .”

“Welcome to cowboy country,” he drawled .

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

That’s my impression of a dog there.

I was growling.

If you ever go cycling around remote Bulgarian villages, then you’re probably quite familiar with this sound.

There are dogs everywhere, and sometimes they just bark.

But sometimes, before barking, they growl — they make that low, threatening, throaty sound.

And it means “stay away.”

But people can growl, too, especially if they want to be threatening.

“‘Stay away from my family!’ he growled .”

Using speaking verbs as nouns

We can use these speaking verbs in the same way we use “say.”

For example, if someone says “Get out!” loudly, we can say:

“‘Get out!’ he shouted .”

However, most of the verbs we looked at today are also used as nouns. (You might have noticed in some of the examples.)

For example, if we want to focus on the fact that he was angry when he shouted, and not the words he used, we can say:

“He gave a shout of anger.”

We can use these nouns with various verbs, usually “ give ” or “ let out .”

“She gave a shout of surprise.”

“He let out a bellow of laughter.”

“I heard a faint murmur through the door.”

There you have it: 30 alternatives to “say.”

So next time you’re describing your favourite TV show or talking about the dramatic argument you saw the other day, you’ll be able to describe it more colourfully and expressively.

Did you like this post? Then be awesome and share by clicking the blue button below.

8 thoughts on “ Words for Speaking: 30 Speech Verbs in English (With Audio) ”

Always enlighten and fun.. thank you

Great job! Thank you so much for sharing with us. My students love your drawing and teaching very much. So do I of course.

Good news: I found more than 30 verbs for “speaking”. Bad news, only four of them were in your list. That is to say “Good news I’m only 50 I still have plenty of time to learn new things, bad news I’m already 50 and still have so much learn. Thanks for your posts, they’re so interesting and useful!

Excellent. Can I print it?

Thanks Iris.

And yes — Feel free to print it! :)

Thanks so much! It was very interesting and helpful❤

Great words, shouts and barks, Gabriel. I’m already writing them down, so I can practise with them bit by bit. Thanks for the lesson!

Thank you so much for sharing with us. .It is very useful

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16 Speaking Verbs In English

• Post author: Harry
• Post last modified: 28/03/2023
• Post category: English Vocabulary
• Reading time: 11 mins read

Learn speaking verbs in English.

Learn 16 important verbs to use for “speak” in English. These words will help you build your vocabulary and be more descriptive with powerful alternative verbs to use for ‘speak’ in English, including common synonyms of speak. 

Listen to the podcast Speak Better English with Harry or watch it on YouTube at Learn English with Harry . englishclass101

list of speaking verbs in English

16 speaking verbs in english.

So in this particular lesson, we’re going to look at advanced English speaking verbs.

The verbs we use to describe how somebody speaks, or how we hear them speaking, or the sounds they make.

So lots of them are very strange and maybe a little bit unusual for you, but I’ll explain them to you and I’ll give you plenty of examples.

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So we’re going to talk first of all when people are talking loudly .

So when we’re talking loudly, here are the verbs we can use:

Meaning: to speak with a strong, loud, clear sound; to shout (often when angry or in pain)

I saw my friends on the other side of the park, and I yelled to get their attention.

Meaning: to say something in a loud angry voice (we usually bark orders)

Somebody from behind the counter barked (out) a few orders to the staff and left.

Meaning: usually speak or shout in a high-pitched voice; for example, if you get a shock

She screeched out loud when she the size of the spider in the bath.

Meaning: to say or cry something in a loud and high voice (because of pain, surprise, etc)

If you go to a pop concert, then you’ll hear people screaming out the music.

The bartender couldn’t hear John, so he had to scream to get their attention.

Then the opposite then is to speak quietly .

And the type of verbs that are used for speaking quietly will be:

Meaning: to speak in a very, very, very low voice (like a mouse)

People are asked not to make noise in a library, so they have to whisper.

Meaning: to speak in a low, barely audible voice (often in irritation)

My mother always encouraged me to speak clearly and not to mutter.

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Now, if we talk about verbs connected with speaking negatively , let’s look at a few of those.

• babble (on)

Meaning: to complain in a way that is unreasonable (usually in a loud manner)

He’s been ranting on about the service in that restaurant for days, I wish he would just go and complain.

He always has something to rant about. Now he is going on complaining about the weather.

Meaning: to talk at length in a confused way, without any structure

Meaning: to talk continuously in a foolish, incomprehensible way 

He rambles on. He’s been babbling on about that for ages.

Meaning: to complain about something over a longer period of time

He grumbled angrily from behind his paper that he had had enough.

Meaning: complain about something in an annoying way 

I kept moaning all the way through the movie about how ridiculous it was but still watched it.

Meaning: to speak in an unfriendly and aggressive way

He came into the office with water dripping from everywhere, his colleague asked him if it was raining he growled back in an annoyed tone, ‘What do you think?’

Meaning: to speak about something in a very enthusiastic way 

He’s been raving about that hotel since he got back from his holiday. You’d think it was the only hotel in the world!

It depends on how you use “rave,” it could be both positive and negative.

Meaning: to say something in a way that is not clear enough and difficult to understand

If you’re doing a speaking test, don’t mumble. Speak clearly. The inspector must hear everything you say.

Meaning: to speak with difficulty, it can also be a medical condition

King George VI stuttered all his life. It was hard for him to give speeches to the British public.

Meaning: to speak in a slow way and focus too much on the vowels 

‘Good morning, folks and welcome to Texas,’ he drawled in a southern American accent.

Okay, so we’re talking here about different verbs in connection with speaking and talking.

Let me give these speaking verbs in English to you one more time.

Speaking loudly:

Speaking quietly:

Speaking negatively:

• rave – this is more positive than negative

Speaking unclearly:

And one more without a category:

Okay, so they’re all advanced ways of speaking in English.

I hope you enjoyed those. You can practice them and practice your American drawl if you really wish to.

I always enjoy it when you listen to and watch my English lessons, I’m very grateful.

If you need anything you can write to me at englishlessonviaskype.com .

And as always, join me again soon, Harry signing off.

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21 alternative verbs to describe speaking

by Phil Williams | Apr 16, 2015 | General English , Vocabulary , Words , Writing skills | 6 comments

Simple and flexible, for questions. There are many different ways to ask questions which can be framed with different verbs, to ask is the most universal and neutral.

“Where is my watch?” she asked.

To respond is a very general verb that can be any response, so when we use it to describe speech it merely means that what was said was in reaction to something else. There are many possible types of response someone can make, including non-verbal, so it is a verb that can also be used a lot outside this context.

They said he looked very clean. He responded “I just washed my hair.”

An answer generally followings a question or some form of problem that needs to be addressed. Like respond, it must be in reaction to something, but it more specifically relates to questions.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked. “Out!” she answered.

A reply is a form of response, which again is used in reaction to something. It is less general than response, however, usually suggesting a verbal response (something using words). So you may respond by nodding your head, but that would not typically be considered a reply.

“Are you eating dinner with us tonight?” the concierge asked. “No, I will buy something in the market,” Linda replied.

A request is more specific than simply asking; to request is to ask for something to be done or to be given – which could mean asking for an action, or to receive an object. It is a fairly polite, formal verb.

I requested a different room at the hotel.

In contrast to request, demand is a forceful way to ask for something to be done or given. It suggests aggression and authority.

“Give me my boots back!” she demanded.

In creative writing, it can be useful as a way to describe asking a question, as someone demands the answer forcefully, rather than merely asks for it.

To enquire is a formal, polite verb, used for asking about information. (Not to be mixed up with inquire, which means to perform a formal investigation.)

“Which office is Mr Brown in?” the postman enquired.

To suggest something is to highlight it as a possibility, to introduce an idea – usually a solution to a problem.

“What if we paint the door brown instead of red?” Billy suggested.

We use note to show something is said simply, factually – neutrally. It removes agency from what is said, for example to show something is being pointed out without any particular emotion. (And, similarly, you can use ‘to point out’ in the same way.)

“Ah, that’s the wrong cheese,” he noted.

10. Interrupt

To interrupt is to say something that cuts off another speaker or action, so it used when someone starts speaking, for example, mid-sentence.

“Every triangle has four sides and-” the professor was saying. “Excuse me,” the student interrupted, “But I think you’ll find triangles have three sides.”

11. Interject

Less abrupt than interrupting, interjecting offers additional information between points. It may or may not cut someone off (interrupt), but it’s usually lighter, and more for positive comments (though of course it doesn’t have to be).

“We’re going to France,” Paul was explaining. “On a boat!” his girlfriend interjected.

12. Reveal (divulge)

To reveal is to say something that offers new information, which is useful if you want to be dramatic. Like a number of verbs here, it does not necessarily relate to speech, but in the context of saying something, it is to provide new information. For a more formal, polite version, you could also use to divulge.

“I like dogs more than cats,” she revealed suddenly.

13. Exclaim

An exclamation is something said suddenly and boldly, often in surprise. To exclaim is therefore useful as a shocked response, demonstrating a loud reaction.

He looked in the box and stood up quickly, exclaiming “We’ve run out of marshmallows!”

14. Shout (yell)

To shout is to say something in a very loud voice, for instance the way football fans tend to communicate during a game. To yell is similar, but can seem slightly more extreme.

“Come back here with that painting!” the guard shouted.

15. Scream (shriek)

A scream is like a shout, something at the top of the voice, but is more specifically high-pitched, and usually the result of some desperate fear. Shriek is an even more extreme version. Screams and shrieks are not necessarily verbal, but can be used with words.

“It’s a spider!” she screamed.

16. Joke (laugh)

To joke is to say something in a light way, not to be taken seriously. We can also laugh to describe this kind of speaking, though it implies speech mixed with laughter.

“Nice weather for ducks!” he joked, watching the rain.

To claim, in speech, is to say something that the subject is presenting as true. Using a word like this suggests that there is some doubt about what is being said.

“This watch is worth £500,” the shopkeeper claimed. I did not believe him.

To snap is to say something in a short, aggressive manner, usually as an angry response.

“I cleaned the dishes,” he claimed. “I can see they’re still dirty!” she snapped.

19. Mumble (murmur)

Mumbling is speaking in an unclear way, where words are not properly pronounced. This usually means when the speaker does not open their mouth properly, or speaks too quietly. An alternative is murmur, which refers more to speaking quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Jim mumbled. “Speak clearly!” the teacher snapped. “I said I’m sorry!” Jim shouted.

20. Whisper

To whisper is to speak very quietly, normally when you do not want to be heard.

The couple crept through the hallway. Her shoes squeaked. Fred whispered, “Shh, you’ll wake up the kids.”

21. Complain (grumble)

To complain is to disagree or express disappointment with something, so is usually used in a negative sense. Grumble may be used similarly in speech, to express a complaint made in an unclear (often miserable) way, like mumbling.

“This isn’t the milkshake I ordered,” the girl complained.  

If you have any questions, or examples of more alternatives to the verb to say, do let me know in the comments below!

This article was very useful to me. Thanks!

You’re welcome!

i feel like these comments are fake lol

Sorry, they’re not!

Thanks, your materials are really helpful.

You’re welcome, thanks for saying!

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