Speaker

How to spell speaker

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce speaker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does speaker mean?

1. nounA person who speaks, especially one who delivers a speech or address to an audience.
2. nounAn electrical device that converts a signal into audible sound.
3. nounThe official who presides over and keeps order in a legislative chamber.

Speaker in a sentence

• The conference booked a keynote speaker from the technology sector.

• The left speaker crackled whenever the volume rose too high.

• The speaker called the house to order before the vote.

• As a native speaker of French, she translated the contract easily.

• He mounted a wireless speaker on the kitchen shelf.

• Members must address their remarks to the speaker during debate.

Where does speaker come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the native English verb 'speak', which descends from the Old English 'specan', an earlier form of 'sprecan' meaning 'to talk' or 'to make speech'. It belongs to a broad Germanic family, with close relatives such as the Dutch 'spreken' and the German 'sprechen', all carrying the same idea of uttering words aloud. The agent suffix '-er', also of Germanic origin, was attached to turn the verb into a noun for the person who performs the action, giving 'speaker' the basic meaning of 'one who speaks'. Over time the same '-er' ending let the word stretch to cover things rather than people, so a 'speaker' became the device that emits sound. The parliamentary 'Speaker', the official who presides over a debating chamber, dates from the 1300s and recalls the role of voicing the assembly's decisions to the monarch. The spelling is regular and phonetic, with the only mild trap being the 'ea' vowel inherited from the Old English stem.

How the word is built

• speak (to talk, from Old English specan)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: one who, or thing that, does the action)