Gettysburg Address

American  

noun

1. the notable short speech made by President Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.

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Gettysburg Address British  

noun

1. history the speech made by President Lincoln at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg in Nov 1863

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Gettysburg Address Cultural  

1. A speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The opening and closing lines are particularly memorable: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…. [We must] be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

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Lincoln surprised his audience at Gettysburg with the brevity of his speech. He delivered the Gettysburg Address, which lasted about three minutes, after a two-hour speech by Edward Everett, one of the leading orators of the day.

Example Sentences

They were replaced with images inspired by the Mayflower Compact, the Revolutionary War and the Gettysburg Address.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 11, 2025

During these conversations, Takei says his father would quote Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2025

Takei recalled how his father taught him how the government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address, could also prove a weakness.

From Seattle Times • May 29, 2024

Abraham Lincoln said it best in the Gettysburg Address from November 19, 1863:

From Salon • May 27, 2024

Over a longer stretch of time, the Farewell Address achieved transcendental status, ranking alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address as a seminal statement of America's abiding principles.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis