What's the difference between ask and speak?

Ask


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To request; to seek to obtain by words; to petition; to solicit; -- often with of, in the sense of from, before the person addressed.
  • (v. t.) To require, demand, claim, or expect, whether by way of remuneration or return, or as a matter of necessity; as, what price do you ask?
  • (v. t.) To interrogate or inquire of or concerning; to put a question to or about; to question.
  • (v. t.) To invite; as, to ask one to an entertainment.
  • (v. t.) To publish in church for marriage; -- said of both the banns and the persons.
  • (v. i.) To request or petition; -- usually followed by for; as, to ask for bread.
  • (v. i.) To make inquiry, or seek by request; -- sometimes followed by after.
  • (n.) A water newt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here we have asked whether protection from blood-borne antigens afforded by the blood-brain barrier is related to the lack of MHC expression.
  • (2) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
  • (3) Collins said she asked Sullivan several questions, including who the women were.
  • (4) People should ask their MP to press the government for a speedier response.
  • (5) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (6) I ask a friend to have a stab at, “down at cafe that does us butties”, and he said: “Something to do with his ass?” “Whose arse?” He looked panicked.
  • (7) Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week.
  • (8) The Hamilton-Wentworth regional health department was asked by one of its municipalities to determine whether the present water supply and sewage disposal methods used in a community without piped water and regional sewage disposal posed a threat to the health of its residents.
  • (9) Considerate touches includes the free use of cruiser bicycles (the best method of tackling the Palm Springs main drag), home-baked cookies … and if you'd like to get married, ask the manager: he's a minister.
  • (10) An age- and education-matched group of women with no family history of FXS was asked to predict the seriousness of problems they might encounter were they to bear a child with a handicapping condition.
  • (11) For example, 75% of them were asked about their family life, marital status and children in interviews.
  • (12) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (13) But because current donor contributions are not sufficient to cover the thousands of schools in need of security, I will ask in the commons debate that the UK government allocates more.
  • (14) He had been just asked to open their new town hall, in the hope he might donate a Shakespeare statue.
  • (15) The information about her father's semi-brainwashing forms an interesting backdrop to Malala's comments when I ask if she ever wonders about the man who tried to kill her on her way back from school that day in October last year, and why his hands were shaking as he held the gun – a detail she has picked up from the girls in the school bus with her at the time; she herself has no memory of the shooting.
  • (16) After an introductory training program, the students asked the patients arriving at the hospital out-patient clinic for permission to observe them throughout the attendance given.
  • (17) When asked why the streets of London were not heaving with demonstrators protesting against Russia turning Aleppo into the Guernica of our times, Stop the War replied that it had no wish to add to the “jingoism” politicians were whipping up against plucky little Russia .
  • (18) In each of the clinics I visit I ask how much the surrogates are paid.
  • (19) Gwendolen Morgan, the lawyer at Bindmans dealing with the case, said: "We have grave concerns about the decision to use this draconian power to detain our client for nine hours on Sunday – for what appear to be highly questionable motives, which we will be asking the high court to consider.
  • (20) A subgroup of 40 patients was asked to complete a brief survey on medical care information and satisfaction.

Speak


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To utter words or articulate sounds, as human beings; to express thoughts by words; as, the organs may be so obstructed that a man may not be able to speak.
  • (v. i.) To express opinions; to say; to talk; to converse.
  • (v. i.) To utter a speech, discourse, or harangue; to adress a public assembly formally.
  • (v. i.) To discourse; to make mention; to tell.
  • (v. i.) To give sound; to sound.
  • (v. i.) To convey sentiments, ideas, or intelligence as if by utterance; as, features that speak of self-will.
  • (v. t.) To utter with the mouth; to pronounce; to utter articulately, as human beings.
  • (v. t.) To utter in a word or words; to say; to tell; to declare orally; as, to speak the truth; to speak sense.
  • (v. t.) To declare; to proclaim; to publish; to make known; to exhibit; to express in any way.
  • (v. t.) To talk or converse in; to utter or pronounce, as in conversation; as, to speak Latin.
  • (v. t.) To address; to accost; to speak to.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But when he speaks, the crowds who have come together to make a stand against government corruption and soaring fuel prices cheer wildly.
  • (2) Whittingdale also defended the right of MPs to use privilege to speak out on public interest matters.
  • (3) The cause has been innumerable "VIP movements", as journeys undertaken by those considered important enough for all other traffic to be held up, sometimes for hours, are described in South Asian bureaucratic speak.
  • (4) Many speak about how yoga and surfing complement each other, both involving deep concentration, flexibility and balance.
  • (5) Speaking to pro-market thinktank Reform, Milburn called for “more competition” and said the shadow health team were making a “fundamental political misjudgment” by attempting to roll back policies he had overseen.
  • (6) Speaking to a handpicked audience of community representatives, the prime minister said he had not allowed the EU to get its way.
  • (7) Technically speaking, this modality of brief psychotherapy is based on the nonuse of transferential interpretations, on impeding the regression od the patient, on facilitating a cognitice-affective development of his conflicts and thus obtain an internal object mutation which allows the transformation of the "past" into true history, and the "present" into vital perspectives.
  • (8) The distribution of cells at the stage of DNA synthesis and mitosis in all the parietal peritoneum speaks of the absence of special proliferation zones.
  • (9) Again, the boys in care that he abused now speak to us as broken adults.
  • (10) It’s the same story over and over.” Children’s author Philip Ardagh , who told the room he once worked as an “unprofessional librarian” in Lewisham, said: “Closing down a library is like filing off the end of a swordfish’s nose: pointless.” 'Speak up before there's nothing left': authors rally for National Libraries Day Read more “Today proves that support for public libraries comes from all walks of life and it’s not rocket science to work out why.
  • (11) Speaking in the BBC's Radio Theatre, Hall will emphasise the need for a better, simpler BBC, as part of efforts to streamline management.
  • (12) The ability to demonstrate selective augmentation of the functional matrix-associated receptor population, and our recent results showing that gonadotropes are indeed the responsive cells (Singh P, Muldoon TG, unpublished observations) speak to the specificity and relevance of these findings.
  • (13) Clare Gills, an American journalist and friend of Foley, wrote in 2013: “He is always striving to get to the next place, to get closer to what is really happening, and to understand what moves the people he’s speaking with.
  • (14) There is a certain degree of swagger, a sudden interruption of panache, as Alan Moore enters the rather sterile Waterstones office where he has agreed to speak to me.
  • (15) The debate certainly hit upon a larger issue: the tendency for people in positions of social and cultural power to tell the stories of minorities for them, rather than allowing minority communities to speak for themselves.
  • (16) Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, People's Liberation Army's chief of the general staff Gen Fang Fenghui also warned that the US must be objective about tensions between China and Vietnam or risk harming relations between Washington and Beijing.
  • (17) Speaking at The Carbon Show in London today, Philippe Chauvancy, director at climate exchange BlueNext, said that the announcement last week that it is to develop China's first standard for voluntary emission reduction projects alongside the government-backed China Beijing Environmental Exchange, could lay the foundations for a voluntary cap-and-trade scheme.
  • (18) "There were around 50 attackers, heavily armed in three vehicles, and they were flying the Shebab flag," Maisori added, speaking from the town, where several buildings including hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices were razed to the ground.
  • (19) Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born campaigner against religious laws, had been invited to speak to the Warwick Atheists, Secularists and Humanists Society next month.
  • (20) A doctor the Guardian later speaks to insists it makes no sense.