orator

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Look up orator in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

An orator, or oratist, is a (public) speaker.

An orator may also be called an oratarian - literally, "one who orates".

Etymology

It is recorded in English since c.1374, meaning "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French oratour, Old French orateur (14th century), Latin orator ("speaker"), from orare ("speak before a court or assembly; plead"), derived from a Proto-Indo-European base *or- ("to pronounce a ritual formula").

The modern meaning of the word, "public speaker", is attested from c.1430.

History

In ancient Rome, the art of speaking in public (Ars Oratoria) was a professional competence especially cultivated by politicians and lawyers. As the Greeks were still seen as the masters in this field, as in philosophy and most sciences, the leading Roman families often either sent their sons to study these things under a famous master in Greece (as was the case with the young Julius Caesar), or engaged a Greek teacher (under pay or as a slave).^{[citation needed]}

In the young revolutionary French republic, Orateur (French for "orator", but compare the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary speaker) was the formal title for the delegated members of the Tribunat to the Corps législatif, to motivate their ruling on a presented bill.

In the 19th century, orators and lecturers, such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Col. Robert G. Ingersoll were major providers of popular entertainment.

The term pulpit orator denotes Christian authors, often clergymen, renowned for their ability to write and/or deliver (from the pulpit in church, hence the word) rhetorically skilled religious sermons.

In some universities, the title 'Orator' is given to the official whose task it is to give speeches on ceremonial occasions, such as the presentation of honorary degrees.

Other famous orators

Ancient and medieval orators

• Thiruvalluvar, Ancient Tamil Poet
• Perikles, Athenian statesman
• Aspasia, Pericles' spouse
• The ten Attic orators (Greece)
  • Demosthenes, champion of the Philippic
  • Aeschines
  • Andocides
  • Antiphon
  • Dinarchus
  • Hypereides
  • Lysias
  • Isaeus
  • Isocrates
  • Lycurgus of Athens
• Aristogeiton
• Julius Caesar, Roman dictator
• Claudius Aelianus, meliglossos, 'honey-tongued'
• Decimus Magnus Ausonius
• Cicero
• Domitius Afer
• Eumenius
• Francesco Petrarch, father of humanism
• Gaius Scribonius Curio
• Hegesippus, Athenian
• Hermagoras of Temnos, Rhodian school
• Cato the Elder, Roman calling for the final Punic war
• Licinius Macer Calvus, Roman poet and orator
• Marcus Antonius Orator, Roman
• Marcus Licinius Crassus, Roman
• Nazarius
• Paul of Tarsus, thirteenth apostle
• Peter the Hermit, calling for the First Crusade
• Quintus Hortensius
• Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
• Seneca the Rhetorician, father of Nero's better-known teacher

Modern orators

Though most politicians (by nature of their office) may perform many speeches, as do those who support or oppose a political issue, to include them all would be prohibitive. The following are those who have been noted as famous specifically for their oratory abilities, and/or for a particularly famous speech or speeches.

• Allied and Axis leaders of World War II noted for their speeches:
  • Winston Churchill (UK PM)
  • Charles de Gaulle (Free French general; President of France)
  • Joseph Goebbels
  • Adolf Hitler (Führer of Nazi Germany)
  • Douglas MacArthur - Farewell Speech to Congress
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt (US President)
• The Great Triumvirate:
  • Henry Clay
  • John C. Calhoun
  • Daniel Webster
• C.N. Annadurai (Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, India)
• M. Karunanidhi (Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, India)
• Periyar (Modern Indian Philosopher)
• William Jennings Bryan - Cross of Gold speech
• Frederick Douglass - Self-Made Men
• Patrick Henry - Give me Liberty, or give me Death!
• John F. Kennedy (US President) - inaugural address
• Martin Luther King, Jr. - "I Have A Dream"
• Abraham Lincoln (US President) - Gettysburg address
• Richard M. Nixon (US Vice-President) - Checkers speech
• Barack Obama (US President) - The Audacity of Hope, A More Perfect Union
• Ronald Reagan (US President) - First Inaugural Address, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
• Sojourner Truth^[1]
• Malcolm X - "The Ballot or the Bullet"

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Notes

Sources and references

(incomplete)

• American Rhetoric
• EtymologyOnLine
• Catholic Encyclopaedia (passim)
• 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (passim)
• Californian mason site
• African American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, edited by Richard W. Leeman, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. ISBN 0313290148