What's the difference between declaim and recite?

Declaim


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To speak rhetorically; to make a formal speech or oration; to harangue; specifically, to recite a speech, poem, etc., in public as a rhetorical exercise; to practice public speaking; as, the students declaim twice a week.
  • (v. i.) To speak for rhetorical display; to speak pompously, noisily, or theatrically; to make an empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant.
  • (v. t.) To utter in public; to deliver in a rhetorical or set manner.
  • (v. t.) To defend by declamation; to advocate loudly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Click to view The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie makes a surprise appearance on Beyoncé's latest album , released on iTunes this morning, declaiming: "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.
  • (2) He’s not just a straight-talker, he’s a man who reliably says the things politicians dream their opponents will be caught muttering within range of forgotten radio-mics – except he declaims them on a podium in front of thousands.
  • (3) The charge sheet was stunning: "He has corrupted his hands and sullied his government with bribes," declaimed Burke in his opening speech to the hearing.
  • (4) Favourite lines are a very personal affair, but members of my family are liable to declaim "I must have a charcoal biscuit, which is good for me", "Nothing grows in our garden, only washing", "Here's your arsenic, dear," or "Oh, isn't life a terrible thing, thank God?"
  • (5) 1976’s awesome Station to Station found him in Wagnerian mode, imperiously gazing over mountains and oceans, declaiming “the European canon is here” while “driving like a demon” between the stations (sephiroth) of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, “from Kether to Malkuth”.
  • (6) They get drunk, they go punting on the canals, they recite passages from Shakespeare, they declaim lines from Chaucer to dismayed cows, who wonder where all of this is leading.
  • (7) His letters and journals - many written with an eye towards publication - vividly conjure the life and times of an inimitable self-dramatiser ("Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life - and if Virtue is not its own reward I don't know any other," he declaimed).
  • (8) When I Google the phrase I get Burberry's website, so I try 'British values' and the first entry is Tony Blair declaiming the 'core British values of fair play, creativity, tolerance and an outward-looking approach to the world'.
  • (9) Thomas stretches out his sentences into great, rolling, relentless waves, or crushes words together into compound coinages as the voices whisper and declaim: the play is bawdy, tragic, lyrical, sly, odd, familiar, broad and deep by turns.
  • (10) An MA graduate who can speak fluent English but who prefers to declaim in Gujarati or Hindi as he did in London last night, Mr Modi is technically savvy, and usually answers his own email.
  • (11) "It was the night before New Year's … " he declaims over an icy RZA production.
  • (12) Arena's main soliloquy is breathtaking: wearing a face-painted mask of kaleidoscopic colours and in drag (a red dress), his character declaims a kind of manifesto: "I wish to live in the drama of schism, of division … Live for a different idea, cultivate love for another possibility unforeseen, full of attraction and danger, necessary, inevitable, fatal... " Written by Punzo, made rhetorical by Arena, who speaks his lines with a mixture of mockery and defiance, across a range of facial expression that excites as much as it discomforts.
  • (13) So I wasn't surprised to read in Simon Callow's Charles Dickens and The Great Theatre of The World , that the author used to declaim passages aloud to his family after he'd written them.
  • (14) They will be playing to different galleries, declaiming their positions to their peers in the chamber, but also to domestic audiences.
  • (15) Thus declaimed Apple marketing boss "Big" Phil Schiller as he provided a rare sneak peak of a forthcoming Apple product: the new Mac Pro.
  • (16) On the higher end of the cultural scale, V declaims Shakespeare, and in honour of Guy Fawkes's subversion in the age of James I, reels off lots of Macbeth.
  • (17) • Readers who have found themselves persuaded this week by the measured insights of Ukip donor Demetri Marchessini, who purchased an ad in the Daily Telegraph to declaim on the subject of homosexuality ("there is no such word as 'homophobic', it cannot be found in any dictionary") are no doubt anxious to hear more from the Greek businessman and self-styled polemicist.
  • (18) I think, retrospectively, all this should have been declaimed in French.
  • (19) Oh you terrorists, you will be defeated, defeated, defeated!” the presenter declaimed.
  • (20) The introduction still packs an emotional punch as it declaims: “Those of us who lived those unique and unforgettable days, days destined to light up the history of the world, will never lose the memory of them.” Behind the counter, Carmen is the current custodian of those memories.

Recite


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To repeat, as something already prepared, written down, committed to memory, or the like; to deliver from a written or printed document, or from recollection; to rehearse; as, to recite the words of an author, or of a deed or covenant.
  • (v. t.) To tell over; to go over in particulars; to relate; to narrate; as, to recite past events; to recite the particulars of a voyage.
  • (v. t.) To rehearse, as a lesson to an instructor.
  • (v. t.) To state in or as a recital. See Recital, 5.
  • (v. i.) To repeat, pronounce, or rehearse, as before an audience, something prepared or committed to memory; to rehearse a lesson learned.
  • (n.) A recital.

Example Sentences: