(v. t.) To speak or arrange for beforehand; to order or engage against a future time; as, to bespeak goods, a right, or a favor.
(v. t.) To show beforehand; to foretell; to indicate.
(v. t.) To betoken; to show; to indicate by external marks or appearances.
(v. t.) To speak to; to address.
(v. i.) To speak.
(n.) A bespeaking. Among actors, a benefit (when a particular play is bespoken.)
Example Sentences:
(1) The constitution bespeaks an alternative model of development based on buen vivir , a notion so novel that it can only be adequately uttered in a non-colonial language, Quechua : sumak kawsay .
(2) One blogger writes: "It bespeaks great scientific arrogance (of the kind that Wolf supposedly decries!)
(3) Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Albania has yet to recover from the 40 terrible years of Hoxha’s dictatorship.’ Photograph: Corbis Second, because these jokes bespeak a kind of left cosiness, an assumption of shared assumptions that bodes ill for Labour .
(4) It's an appealingly blunt job description that bespeaks supreme executive power.
(5) Whereas any contemplation suggesting routinization in a plastic surgery endeavor may engender abhorrence or bespeak heresy, some generalizations are essential at least as a foundation from which a logical divergence may proceed.
(6) Moreover, within the same species, the cause of death of an individual varies widely, which again bespeaks against a regulatory mechanism.
(7) In times past, great educators have spoken without compunction about the virtues of discrimination – not the loaded modern use of the word bespeaking one-upmanship and prejudice, but discrimination as a discipline of the intellect and character.
(8) In fact, even appearing as a "celebrity" in a documentary such as this bespeaks a desperation of a professional rather than practical kind (there are ways to investigate poverty without turning to the AK-47 of fleeting and synthetic empathy, reality TV), and that is only its first offence.
(9) Recent advances at clinical and experimental levels bespeak the need for a more complete understanding of cardiac growth and its relationship to somatic growth.
(10) Presumably, recognition mechanisms for hormones in protozoa resemble in some respects those in multicellular organisms, therefore bespeaking a common origin.
(11) When the Labour London assembly member Andrew Dismore accused him last September of lying about cuts to London's fire services, Johnson's considered response was "Get stuffed" – which does not bespeak a coherent political belief system, or even patience with the processes.
(12) In a 24-page legal “letter before claim” sent to Hunt, the quintet claim: “To have taken a decision of such consequence, in the face of such opposition and escalating industrial action, and in the absence of support from leaders in the NHS, in under 24 hours and without consultation, bespeaks of a plainly irrational approach that failed to take account of the ramifications it was likely to involve.” Bindmans letter to Jeremy Hunt The challenge is being undertaken by Justice for Health , a company set up by the five junior doctors: Ben White, Francesca Silman, Marie McVeigh, Nadia Masood and Amar Mashru.
(13) This enkephalinergic system shows striking similarities to opioid mechanisms found in vertebrates and bespeaks a common evolutionary origin.
(14) The unchanging cell ATP concentration with a higher respiratory rate upon addition of exogenous substrate bespeaks increased ATP turnover.
(15) "Ahmadinejad's stubborn defence of Mashaei bespeaks his importance as a key adviser for the increasingly isolated president; he also has emerged as a spokesman for the Ahmadinejad administration.
(16) We still retain from our historical past the notion that mental or emotional illness bespeaks, if not possession by spirits, at least an irreversible condition.
(17) That's not exactly a biography that bespeaks social impotence and alienation.
(18) Religion , he says, glues us together, which doesn't bespeak an enormous amount of faith in the ability of human beings to find common ground outside a certain belief, for example, in the righteousness of the tooth fairy, or the tendency of trolls to live under bridges, although this is understandable – if you take the long view, we have had magic for ever, and the Enlightenment for about 10 minutes.
(19) Fundamental to a successful autopsy request is sensitivity for the family's feelings, which bespeaks respect for the deceased and the family.
(20) Ashker, whose pale, unlined face bespeaks decades without sun, does not expect to leave the hole.
Betoken
Definition:
(v. t.) To signify by some visible object; to show by signs or tokens.
(v. t.) To foreshow by present signs; to indicate something future by that which is seen or known; as, a dark cloud often betokens a storm.
Example Sentences:
(1) But ‘widespread and systematic’ does betoken government control.” Crane said: “Now we have direct evidence of what was happening to people who had disappeared.
(2) Their suicide exploits inside Israel proper betokened the much larger meaning which the intifada carried for them: "complete liberation" to which, in his early years, Arafat had subscribed.
(3) The head of the ulna almost certainly betokens a range of radioulnar supination in cercopithecoids that is substantially less than is to be found in any of the hominoid genera.
(4) But the differences between the various conditions were small (below 20 degrees) and seem attributable to various distortions of the response wave from away from a true sinusoid, rather than betokening a difference in the ratio of velocity to length sensitivity under the various conditions.
(5) RFK reportedly adored JFK, while the latter was capable of snarling putdowns that surely betokened a fragile sense of self-worth pathetic in the most powerful man on the planet.
(6) All these properties betoken the polysaccharidic nature of M antigen.
(7) His recorded observations on colour blindness are detailed and precise and betoken the approach which was to characterise all his later research in chemistry.
(8) The proportional increase of elderly persons in most communities and increasing tooth retention among them betoken considerable change in gerodontic needs.
(9) As he speaks, there is, behind those crypto-Trotskyist glasses, a glint betokening political ardour.