soliloquize
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
- soliloquist noun
- soliloquizer noun
- soliloquizingly adverb
Etymology
Origin of soliloquize
First recorded in 1750–60; soliloqu(y) + -ize
Explanation
If you make a speech to yourself in your bathroom mirror, you soliloquize. To soliloquize is to talk at length to yourself. The verb soliloquize comes from the noun soliloquy, which is a speech given by a person who has no audience — or a speech given by a character in a play who is alone on stage. When an actor soliloquizes, she tells the play's audience what she's thinking. Shakespeare's characters often soliloquize — most famously, Hamlet soliloquizes, "To be or not to be?" The word combines the Latin solus, "alone," and loqui, "speak."
Vocabulary lists containing soliloquize
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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The Shining
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Walden
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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.
To break up the monotony of the two-person chat screen, the actors sometimes stand farther away from the camera, and sometimes soliloquize in private messages to each other.
From New York Times • Sep. 9, 2021
Arrayed before us on Freudian couches, the Nixons and Maos soliloquize about their youthful days of personality formation.
From New York Times • Feb. 11, 2011
But did your alter egos get to soliloquize in song?
From New York Times • May 6, 2010
This time he advances his narration by bringing his characters onstage alone to soliloquize about what has occurred and what bad results may be expected.
From Time Magazine Archive
Whew—on a roll, off to the races, put on this earth solely to soliloquize to his ginormous clay-covered shoes.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
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.
