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
-
bespeaking
present participle
-
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
-
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:
For the owners to even contemplate repeating that experience, especially given the heightened competition in the modern world for sports fans’ attention and viewers’ eyeballs, can bespeak only insanity or stupidity, or probably both.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
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
Following the paradigm established by writers like Ottessa Moshfegh and Catherine Lacey, these latest heroines bespeak a literary era that’s swung past genial pessimism into repulsion.
From New York Times ● Apr. 25, 2019
As his eyes met mine I was suddenly moved to bespeak him, to try to reach him with the mindspeech I had never used since I landed on Winter, and should not use, yet.
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
In 1900, the average life expectancy of a 1-year-old in the U.S. was about 56 years; that bespeaks a morbid population of infants.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2025
“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
But there is also an underrecognized Nicholsonian edge, a darkness, to many of his roles, which perhaps bespeaks the relish with which he offered his impression.
From New York Times ● Jul. 27, 2021
Fortified towns emerged in the third millennium B.C., with cemeteries whose great variation between unadorned and luxuriously furnished graves bespeaks emerging class differences.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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
With that bespake the seven brethren, Making most piteous moan: 'You may go kiss your jolly brown bride, And let our sister alone.'
From The Romantic Scottish Ballads: Their Epoch and Authorship by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
And then bespake Sir Bredbeddle, And these were the words said he: "Why, I will wrestle with yon lodly feend, God! my governor thou shalt bee."
From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume I (of 8) by Various
Then bespake Little John, To Much he 'gan say: "I dare lay my life to wed These monks have brought our pay!"
From Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse by Various
Then bespake him Cornewall King, These were the words he said there: 80 "Did you ever know a comely King, His name was King Arthur?"
From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume I (of 8) by Various
“We think it’s a much healthier and much more rational use of capital to allocate that to bespoke facilities that have long-term agreements tied to them.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Meanwhile the Grapevine, a bespoke staffing agency that caters to ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices, has seen demand for house managers nearly double since last year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
"The methods for defining stickiness that have been developed are always bespoke: They work for one material, at one size scale, in one condition. It's good for studying, but you can't do much with it."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
That's thanks to oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Ulster Hospital; the only service of its kind in Northern Ireland, providing bespoke prostheses for people affected by birth defects, traumatic injuries and cancer surgery.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
He introduced Bobby to his tailor in the Little Hungary section of Manhattan so that the teenager could have some bespoke suits made.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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
The glittering moon was not yet bespoken for the night.
From Hints to Pilgrims by Charles Stephen Brooks
For the crape hat–that was the accident–must indeed come, because it was bespoken.
From Hesperus or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days Vol. II A Biography by Jean Paul
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
He heard my voice bespeaking him as a dead man’s, his brother’s voice.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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