bespeak
Americanverb (used with object)
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bespeaks,
present (3rd person singular)
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bespoke,
past, past participle (Archaic)
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bespake,
past (Archaic)
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bespoken,
past participle
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bespeaking
present participle
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to ask for in advance.
to bespeak the reader's patience.
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to reserve beforehand; engage in advance; make arrangements for.
to bespeak a seat in a theater.
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Literary. to speak to; address.
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to show; indicate.
This bespeaks a kindly heart.
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Obsolete. to foretell; forebode.
verb
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to engage, request, or ask for in advance
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to indicate or suggest
this act bespeaks kindness
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poetic to speak to; address
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archaic to foretell
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bespeaksimple
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bespeakssimple
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have bespokeperfect
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have bespokenperfect
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has bespokeperfect
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has bespokenperfect
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am bespeakingprogressive
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are bespeakingprogressive
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is bespeakingprogressive
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have been bespeakingperfect progressive
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has been bespeakingperfect progressive
Past
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bespakesimple
-
bespokesimple
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had bespokeperfect
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had bespokenperfect
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was bespeakingprogressive
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were bespeakingprogressive
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had been bespeakingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bespeak
before 900; Middle English bespeken, Old English besprecan. See be-, speak
Explanation
To bespeak is to imply or signal something, the way your neighbor's electric car might bespeak concern for the environment. You can use this verb to mean "indicate" or "convey indirectly." Your city's excellent schools and smooth, well-cared-for streets may bespeak high taxes to people who are considering buying a house there. Your interest in foreign films and philosophy might bespeak a deep intelligence and curiosity to your teachers. And if you're really paying attention, you'll realize your friend's crankiness bespeaks her fear of starting at a new school next fall.
Vocabulary lists containing bespeak
Inquire Within: Synoynms for "Ask"
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The Portrait of a Lady
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Reveal
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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.
See Examples For:
Whatever the validity of that charge, it doesn’t bespeak an administration indifferent to the fate of American political ideas abroad.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
Personally I am devoted to Jake, his puppyish enthusiasm, his liveliness and fleetness of non-toxic banter which all bespeak a profound purity of soul.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 9, 2019
Robyn’s radical career moves bespeak that security; as a Canadian, I’ve seen how access to public health care alone widens artists’ range of choices.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2018
You can glimpse it in the ghostly shadows that haunt the laboriously reworked surfaces of her abstractions, where stray textures roam and partially painted-over sections bespeak decisions that didn’t work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2016
Since one cannot bespeak until one has been bespoken, until the telepathic potentiality has been sensitized by one clear reception, I had to get through to him first.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
The film can hardly avoid being described as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” meets “Enemy of the State,” and that such comparisons are so obvious bespeaks a certain lack of originality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
“It bespeaks a really, really big misunderstanding,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2023
But his many TV roles are marked by a sense of implacable stillness that bespeaks the maturity that comes from a long career.
From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2022
“It creates debris all around. Most importantly, in a psychological sense, it bespeaks the fact that we can’t get basic services done, and that’s never a good message.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2021
The fact that this surprises me only bespeaks the depths of my ignorance.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
XIV Now every path and outlet the huntsmen had beset, When thus bespake Sir Siegfried the chiefs who there were met.
From The Nibelungenlied Revised Edition by Unknown
Right glad to see the envoys for his dear sister's sake Was the young knight Giselher, and friendly them bespake.
From The Nibelungenlied Revised Edition by Unknown
The ferryman wax'd furious when Hagan there he found; Thus he bespake the hero, and speaking darkly frown'd.
From The Nibelungenlied Revised Edition by Unknown
And then bespake him King Arthur, "Alas! thou gentle knight, how may this be, That I might see him in the same licknesse, That he stood unto thee?"
From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume I (of 8) by Various
Then bespake him the Greene Knight, These were the words said hee: 220 Saies, "I doe coniure thee, thou fowle feend, In the same licknesse thou stood unto me."
From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume I (of 8) by Various
Professor Michael Huffman, a primatologist based in Japan, currently at Nagasaki University, said this particular account was "tantalising", but more evidence would be needed to prove that elephants provided bespoke medical treatment for their calves.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Another fan, a nail artist, crafted spooky bespoke black and purple press-ons decorated with intricate white hares.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
Artisans at the London fashion house Safiyaa spent 150 hours embroidering Anderson’s bespoke silk reception outfit.
From Salon ● Sep. 14, 2026
The tech roll-up relies on aggressive price hikes and bespoke metrics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Always a bespoke suit and a twenty for the guy at the door — and believe me, he knew all the guys at the door.
From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray
The Pentagon's bespoken spokesman Ken Bacon is getting to be the harbinger of a lot of bad news about the Kosovo situation.
From Time Magazine Archive
Observers wondered if the 20,000 were more acutely bespoken by General Pershing and Commander Savage than they were by often-wounded Captain Jean Piot, a contributor to L'Oeuvre.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since one cannot bespeak until one has been bespoken, until the telepathic potentiality has been sensitized by one clear reception, I had to get through to him first.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
When they made their appearance on the platform an official hurried forward to meet them, and conducted them forthwith to the special saloon carriage Browne had bespoken for their use that morning.
From The Red Rat's Daughter by Guy Boothby
A hearty reception may be bespoken for it.”—Globe.
From Old Church Lore by William Andrews
Pratt was stout, compact and level-eyed, with a raspy drawl bespeaking his childhood on the Louisiana bayou.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2025
But when you know that he thought of his look as bespeaking a kind of weightlessness, you could also surmise that he knew the price of such flight might be life itself.
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2020
For one thing, some of it is very funny, as in a tableau positioning two porcelain figurines of colonial-era gentry before a regal, glowering jet-black face looming above them, their graceful postures bespeaking total incomprehension.
From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2018
On one of my infrequent breaks from forcing myself not to knock the thing back in three gulps, I sought to give the drink a name bespeaking its virtues and dubbed it the Gimletti Punch.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2013
Therem the younger son; Arek the elder, that brother whose voice he had heard in mine bespeaking him; both dead now.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
