ORATOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does orator mean? 

• ORATOR (noun)
  The noun ORATOR has 1 sense:

1. a person who delivers a speech or oration

  Familiarity information: ORATOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ORATOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who delivers a speech or oration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

orator; public speaker; rhetorician; speechifier; speechmaker

Hypernyms ("orator" is a kind of...):

speaker; talker; utterer; verbaliser; verbalizer (someone who expresses in language; someone who talks (especially someone who delivers a public speech or someone especially garrulous))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "orator"):

eulogist; panegyrist (an orator who delivers eulogies or panegyrics)

elocutionist (a public speaker trained in voice production and gesture and delivery)

haranguer (a public speaker who delivers a loud or forceful or angry speech)

spellbinder (an orator who can hold his listeners spellbound)

tub-thumper (a noisy and vigorous or ranting public speaker)

Instance hyponyms:

Burke; Edmund Burke (British statesman famous for his oratory; pleaded the cause of the American colonists in British Parliament and defended the parliamentary system (1729-1797))

Cicero; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Tully (a Roman statesman and orator remembered for his mastery of Latin prose (106-43 BC))

Demosthenes (Athenian statesman and orator (circa 385-322 BC))

Henry; Patrick Henry (a leader of the American Revolution and a famous orator who spoke out against British rule of the American colonies (1736-1799))

Isocrates (Athenian rhetorician and orator (436-338 BC))

Derivation:

orate (talk pompously)

oratorical (characteristic of an orator or oratory)

 Context examples 

I feel it—I would express it if I could—but, as you well know, I am no orator.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

That, quoth the other complacently, was my final argument, my crowning effort, or peroratio, as the orators have it.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Whether advocates and orators had liberty to plead in causes manifestly known to be unjust, vexatious, or oppressive?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

"What are Mrs. Ferrars's views for you at present, Edward?" said she, when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; "are you still to be a great orator in spite of yourself?"

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)