Meanings
nounhyperspeech (uncountable)
- uncountablehuman sciencesThe form of a language a speaker uses when they want to speak clearly.
And for Blackburn speakers, being rhotic is hyperspeech, it's what they do when they're paying attention to the way they talk.
2026 February 1, Geoff Lindsey, “Hear the R that still survives: Lancashire rhoticity!”, in YouTube (video)1 more example
Lindblom [1990] predicts that when contextual support is minimal, speakers will tend to compensate by articulating more clearly, using a kind of 'hyperspeech'.
2000, Anne Fernald, “Speech to Infants as Hyperspeech: Knowledge-Driven Procsses in Early Word Recognition”, in Phonetica, volume 57, numbers 2–4, pages 242–254
Origin
Affixation of hyper- + speech.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with hyperspeech
All rhymes →Cite this entry
APA
hyperspeech. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hyperspeech
MLA
“hyperspeech.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hyperspeech. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hyperspeech,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hyperspeech.
Source: hyperspeech on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.