Definition:
A skilled public speaker. See also:
Etymology:
From the Latin, "speak publicly"Observations:
- "An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking."
(Cato the Elder) - "The plain orator is esteemed wise because he speaks clearly and adroitly; the one who employs the middle style is charming; but the copious speaker, if he has nothing else, seems to be scarcely sane. For a man who can say nothing calmly and mildly, who pays no attention to arrangement, precision, clarity or pleasantry, . . . if without first preparing the ears of his audience he begins trying to work them up to a fiery passion, he seems to be a raving madman among the sane, like a drunken reveler in the midst of sober men. . . .
"He in fact is eloquent who can discuss commonplace matters simply, lofty subjects impressively, and topics raging between in a tempered style."
(Cicero, Orator, 46 BC, translated by H.M. Hubbell) - "[T]he true orator will always . . . speak well. The objection might, perhaps, hold good against those who think that the end of oratory is to persuade, but my orator and his art, as defined by me, do not depend upon the result; he indeed who speaks directs his efforts toward victory, but when he has spoken well, though he may not be victorious, he has attained the full end of his art."
(Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, 95 AD, translated by John Selby Watson) - "An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says."
(William Jennings Bryan) - "The current widespread distrust of the political speaker, the frequently expressed contempt for 'mere rhetoric,' may cause us to forget that throughout the greater part of our history as a nation the orator was chief among American folk heroes."
(Barnet Baskerville, The People's Voice. Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1979)
Pronunciation: OR-eh-ter
