orate
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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orates,
present (3rd person singular)
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orated,
past participle, past
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orating
present participle
verb
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to make or give an oration
-
to speak pompously and lengthily
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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oratesimple
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oratessimple
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have oratedperfect
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has oratedperfect
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am oratingprogressive
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are oratingprogressive
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is oratingprogressive
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have been oratingperfect progressive
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has been oratingperfect progressive
Past
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oratedsimple
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had oratedperfect
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was oratingprogressive
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were oratingprogressive
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had been oratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of orate
First recorded in 1590–1600; back formation from oration
Explanation
To orate is to give an important-sounding speech. If you're giving a wedding toast, feel free to orate. However, if you're giving a friend advice, it's best to avoid orating. There are more and less appropriate situations in which to orate: a famous philosophy professor might be forgiven if she tends to orate when she's speaking about her favorite subject, Spinoza. But if you're at the dinner table, your family will probably just laugh at you if you begin a speech with Mark Antony's words from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!"The Latin root orare means "speak, pray, or plead."
Vocabulary lists containing orate
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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:
Politicians orate, American flags proliferate and, even more than usual, many windows on the world are tinted red, white and blue.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2023
Neville told Rosner that there were three lines of dialogue that he wanted Bourdain’s voice to orate, but he couldn’t find previous audio to string together or make it work otherwise.
From The Verge ● Jul. 15, 2021
The surest way to get yanked off the stage — any stage — is to clear one’s throat and begin to orate.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2021
The new leader of Britain’s House of Commons, known for his orate rhetoric and affinity for tradition, has issued a painstaking list of grammar and etiquette for his staff.
From Fox News ● Jul. 27, 2019
That’s one of the reasons a writer should mutter, mumble, or orate a draft of his prose to himself, ideally after enough time has elapsed that it is no longer familiar.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Daniel Webster orates, in public and at home.
From Time Magazine Archive
Among the loudest opponents of this idea is Senator Everett Dirksen, who orates that such disclosures would make a lawmaker a "second-class citizen."
From Time Magazine Archive
He rarely raises his voice; he never orates; he always drops his gs.
From Time Magazine Archive
From a base, sculpture orates; from the floor, it talks.
From Time Magazine Archive
And he orates random thoughts of profundity with such authority that you want to write them down and hang them on the wall, but they only allow writing instruments in the rec room.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
It featured a version of the Gettysburg address as orated by the president at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
From New York Times ● Jan. 24, 2023
That the speeches in “Undelivered” were never orated does take some of the helium out of their balloons, but in Nussbaum’s able hands, this cruise through what-might-have-been offers a hell of a fun ride.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 3, 2022
While working as a lawyer, he found himself unable to deliver orated arguments as eloquently as he could write them.
From Salon ● Apr. 30, 2022
"Just remember that self-love is a journey. It doesn’t happen miraculously one day," she orated.
From Fox News ● Aug. 18, 2021
The cars were dec orated with big posters which said, “Salinas Valley Lettuce.”
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
He is always explaining to Bran that she doesn’t understand stuff, assigning her homework and orating on the topic of her limitations.
From New York Times ● May 17, 2022
A week and a half after Tom recorded himself orating, he got a voice mail saying he was a winner.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 16, 2022
In our mind’s eye, we have a vision of an exhausting marathon in which a brave senator has the gumption to stand up and keep orating until his or her colleagues see the point.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 12, 2021
“He was a rousing, orating nationalist for the British Empire. But he believed the populace must be informed and educated to see through cheap rhetoric.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2017
Like a Roman tyrant orating to his subjects.
From Shadow of the Mothaship by Cory Doctorow
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.
