How to Use declaim in a Sentence

declaim

verb
  • The actress declaimed her lines with passion.
  • The speakers declaimed on a variety of issues.
  • The legendary politician was declaiming, a hand reaching out to snatch at the air.
    — oregonlive, 22 Apr. 2020
  • Cho is no amateur, but even in its opening moments, the show declaims rather than evokes.
    — Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Mar. 2018
  • Issues are raised, debated and declaimed, often at the top of the cast's lungs.
    — Ricahrd S. Ginell, latimes.com, 19 Mar. 2018
  • Anyone can declaim the glories of waterfalls or snowy mountain peaks, but who dares speak for the swamp?
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 17 Nov. 2021
  • The pastors who speak at those have nearly half an hour each to declaim, and the speakers bring many of their own congregants to the host church with them.
    — Jonathan M. Pitts, baltimoresun.com, 30 Mar. 2018
  • Both emperor and empress compose classical poems to be declaimed to the court several times a year.
    — The Economist, 17 Oct. 2019
  • Oliveira films on location, with the actors in costume, declaiming in boldly theatrical tones that seem wrenched whole from the era of the play’s origins.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2024
  • Near the start of the novel, Frankenstein attends a lecture in which the professor declaims on the promise of modern science.
    — Jacob Brogan, Slate Magazine, 3 Jan. 2017
  • In the opening Chorale, a sinewy viola and then a keening clarinet declaimed as if from a pulpit, while spacious chords rang out from the other four players.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 22 Oct. 2019
  • These were then declaimed by a speech synthesizer, with the androidal American accent that has thereafter become his trademark.
    — Martin Rees, Newsweek, 14 Mar. 2018
  • These were then declaimed by a speech synthesiser, with the androidal American accent that thereafter became his trademark.
    — Martin Rees, Smithsonian, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Places come into view as do people who read, deliberate and declaim uptown and down, largely in Manhattan though also in the Bronx.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 12 Sep. 2017
  • More often, though, Tallent demonstrates his characters’ precarity rather than declaiming about it.
    — Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 2026
  • For the next 80 minutes on this balmy Thursday evening in late May, the actors would sing and declaim while pacing across a green swath of lawn just outside their cafeteria.
    — Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2021
  • Woody Harrelson declaims every line, upping the relentless factor of Phil’s mania.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 18 May 2026
  • These narcissists declaim their insecurities and grievances in the language of personal essays.
    — Christian Lorentzen, New Republic, 9 Feb. 2018
  • One soprano declaims these words while another sings settings of poems by Rebecca Elson, who tells of a similar struggle, in more oblique terms.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 24 June 2018
  • Keeping performers’ voices in good condition for that long haul is the province of a tribe of vocal coaches in Hollywood and everywhere else people sing or declaim for their supper.
    — Jonathan Margolis, airmail.news, 21 Dec. 2024
  • In this sense, all fiction — and this has been roughly true since the early nineteenth century, when the burgeoningly popular, still somewhat novel novel form, was declaimed as a woman’s art — is chick lit.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 28 Apr. 2018
  • Ten minutes later, a few dozen people were crowding into 192 Books, on Tenth Avenue, to hear Grau declaim in a dead language.
    — Fergus McIntosh, The New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2024
  • By contrast, Lloyd Webber had no ear for drama; his characters simply declaimed their emotions directly into the audience, as if by T-shirt cannon.
    — Vulture, 28 Mar. 2023
  • But expect more than a few awards pundits to declaim that the Academy, finally, has no other choice but to present Park Chan-wook with his first Oscar nomination.
    — Patrick Brzeski, HollywoodReporter, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Introduced while smugly declaiming his masturbatory fantasies to his high school English class, Sidney is barely bearable.
    — Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2018
  • In his tableau-like compositions, with their classical-painterly lighting, his characters declaim, bringing a blunt candor to a refined and abstracted sensibility.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2025
  • Park made a stunning impression in both spirituals and symphony, singing in a resonant and warm bass voice — and declaiming clearly without clipping — in both German and English.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 21 Aug. 2023
  • Chatty to a fault, these gangsters rarely kill without preamble, declaiming everything from philosophy to Fauvism and Buddhism to Brexit.
    — Jeannette Catsoulis, miamiherald, 14 Feb. 2018
  • North America, Gilpin grandly declaimed, had a national, unified personality.
    — Johnforristerross, Longreads, 2 July 2018
  • The contrast is striking with state television documentaries featuring bossy, relentless narrators declaiming upbeat slogans.
    — The Economist, 8 Apr. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'declaim.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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