Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Full of talk; loquacious; speaking.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective rare Full of speech or words; voluble; loquacious.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective voluble; loquacious

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

speech +‎ -ful

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Examples

  • We British are not by nature a sprightly and speechful race, with the gift of gay gab, but under the American woman's cheerful influence we are enjoying a sort of reformation.

    Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 Various

  • Even Sallie began to look speechful, and I believe she would have got up and spoken a few words on the subject of women, and how they need men to look after them, but she said something to Mr. Haley, who shook his head and then got up and prosed beautifully to us for ten minutes, and would have gone on longer, if he hadn't seen Henrietta begin to look mutinous.

    The Tinder-Box Maria Thompson Daviess 1898

  • Reporting a visit to Ecclefechan in a letter to his brother Alick in 1856, he says: Yes, there they all lay: father, mother and Margaret's grave between them: silent now, they that were wont to be so speechful, when one came among them after an absence.

    New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1893

  • She shrank not away -- as she first did -- and I seized her hand and showered kisses upon kisses upon it -- kisses from which all the fire of passion had been burned -- in which all the sympathy, all the tenderness of my heart and its hopes for her own eternal salvation were poured fourth in a speechful devotion, little short of idolatry.

    The Story of a Slave. A Realistic Revelation of a Social Relation of Slave Times--Hitherto Unwritten--From the Pen of One Who Has Felt Both the Lash and the Caress of a Mistress No Author 1894

  • She saw herself in it as she advanced -- a regal-like young figure, with a head set like a queen's, speechful dark eyes, and glowing lips; a face that was half child's, half woman's, and yet wholly perfect in its fresh young life and beauty.

    Theo A Sprightly Love Story Frances Hodgson Burnett 1886

  • "How happened Dukie to tumble down-stairs?" asked Mrs. Scherman, in the way mothers do, when she had released him from Mrs. M'Cormick, carried him to the nursery, got him on her knee in a speechful condition, and was tenderly sopping the blue lump on his forehead with arnica water.

    The Other Girls 1865

  • One thing, however, never varies, -- be the agent biped or quadruped, dumb or speechful, young or old, the stranger invariably takes the hint, and gets off scott free for his sharpness.

    Charles O'Malley — Volume 1 Charles James Lever 1839

  • I had been corresponding (roughly) with Neil for nearly a year by then on The Well, but still I couldn’t bring myself to say hello (it took an introduction from Claudia Gonson of the Fields to actual render me speechful).

    So damned good it’s Supernatural 2008

  • I had been corresponding (roughly) with Neil for nearly a year by then on The Well, but still I couldn’t bring myself to say hello (it took an introduction from Claudia Gonson of the Fields to actual render me speechful).

    2008 July | Entrekin 2008

  • "Says he: 'Th' Ph'lippeens as ye have been tol 'be me young but speechful frind, Sinitor Bivridge, who was down there f'r tin minyits wanst an' spoke very highly an 'at some lenth on th' beauties iv th 'scenery, th' Ph'lippeens is wan or more iv th 'beautiful jools in th' diadem iv our fair nation.

    Observations By Mr. Dooley Finley Peter Dunne 1901

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