The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Speech \Speech\, n. [OE. speche, AS. sp?c, spr?, fr. specan,
   sprecan, to speak; akin to D. spraak speech, OHG. spr[=a]hha,
   G. sprache, Sw. spr?k, Dan. sprog. See Speak.]
   1. The faculty of uttering articulate sounds or words; the
      faculty of expressing thoughts by words or articulate
      sounds; the power of speaking.
      [1913 Webster]

            There is none comparable to the variety of
            instructive expressions by speech, wherewith man
            alone is endowed for the communication of his
            thoughts.                             --Holder.
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   2. he act of speaking; that which is spoken; words, as
      expressing ideas; language; conversation.
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   Note: Speech is voice modulated by the throat, tongue, lips,
         etc., the modulation being accomplished by changing the
         form of the cavity of the mouth and nose through the
         action of muscles which move their walls.
         [1913 Webster]

               O goode God! how gentle and how kind
               Ye seemed by your speech and your visage
               The day that maked was our marriage. --Chaucer.
         [1913 Webster]

               The acts of God . . . to human ears
               Can nort without process of speech be told.
                                                  --Milton.
         [1913 Webster]

   3. A particular language, as distinct from others; a tongue;
      a dialect.
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            People of a strange speech and of an hard language.
                                                  --Ezek. iii.
                                                  6.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Talk; mention; common saying.
      [1913 Webster]

            The duke . . . did of me demand
            What was the speech among the Londoners
            Concerning the French journey.        --Shak.
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   5. formal discourse in public; oration; harangue.
      [1913 Webster]

            The constant design of these orators, in all their
            speeches, was to drive some one particular point.
                                                  --Swift.
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   6. ny declaration of thoughts.
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            I. with leave of speech implored, . . . replied.
                                                  --Milton.
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   Syn: Syn. Harangue; language; address; oration. See
        Harangue, and Language.
        [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Speech \Speech\, v. i. & t.
   To make a speech; to harangue. [R.]
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

speech
    n 1: the act of delivering a formal spoken communication to an
         audience; "he listened to an address on minor Roman poets"
         [syn: address, speech]
    2: (language) communication by word of mouth; "his speech was
       garbled"; "he uttered harsh language"; "he recorded the
       spoken language of the streets" [syn: speech, speech
       communication, spoken communication, spoken language,
       language, voice communication, oral communication]
    3: something spoken; "he could hear them uttering merry
       speeches"
    4: the exchange of spoken words; "they were perfectly
       comfortable together without speech"
    5: your characteristic style or manner of expressing yourself
       orally; "his manner of speaking was quite abrupt"; "her
       speech was barren of southernisms"; "I detected a slight
       accent in his speech" [syn: manner of speaking, speech,
       delivery]
    6: a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of
       discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" [syn:
       lecture, speech, talking to]
    7: words making up the dialogue of a play; "the actor forgot his
       speech" [syn: actor's line, speech, words]
    8: the mental faculty or power of vocal communication; "language
       sets homo sapiens apart from all other animals" [syn:
       language, speech]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

229 Moby Thesaurus words for "speech":
   ESP, address, after-dinner speech, alliteration, allocution,
   allusion, anacoluthon, anadiplosis, analogy, anaphora, anastrophe,
   answer, answering, antiphrasis, antithesis, antonomasia, apophasis,
   aporia, aposiopesis, apostrophe, articulated, articulation, blast,
   bull session, catachresis, chalk talk, chiasmus, chinfest,
   choice of words, circumlocution, climax, commerce, communicating,
   communication, communicational, communion, communional,
   composition, confab, confabulation, congress, connection, contact,
   conversation, conversational, converse, conversion, correspondence,
   dealing, dealings, debate, declamation, dialect, dialogue,
   diatribe, diction, discourse, disquisition, duologue, ecphonesis,
   elocution, emphasis, enunciated, enunciation, eulogy, exchange,
   exclamation, exhortation, expression, filibuster, forensic,
   forensic address, formal speech, formulation, funeral oration,
   gemination, grammar, harangue, homily, hortatory address,
   hypallage, hyperbaton, hyperbole, idiom, inaugural,
   inaugural address, information, interacting, interaction,
   interactional, interactive, interchange, intercommunication,
   intercommunicational, intercommunicative, intercommunion,
   intercommunional, intercourse, interplay, interresponsive,
   interrogative, interrogatory, invective, inversion, irony, jargon,
   jeremiad, language, langue, lecture, line, lingo, lingua, lingual,
   linguistic, linguistic intercourse, litotes, locution, malapropism,
   meiosis, message, metaphor, metonymy, nuncupative, onomatopoeia,
   oral, oral communication, oration, oxymoron, palaver, paregmenon,
   parenthesis, parlance, parley, parol, parole, pep talk,
   periphrasis, peroration, personal usage, personification,
   philippic, phrase, phraseology, phrasing, pitch, pleonasm,
   prepared speech, prepared text, preterition, prolepsis, pronounced,
   public speech, question-and-answer session, questioning, reading,
   recital, recitation, regression, repetition, reply, response,
   responsive, rhetoric, said, sales pitch, sales talk, salutatory,
   salutatory address, sarcasm, say, screed, sermon, set speech,
   simile, similitude, social intercourse, song and dance, sounded,
   speaking, speech circuit, speech situation, speechification,
   speeching, spiel, spoken, spoonerism, syllepsis, symploce,
   synecdoche, talk, talkathon, talkfest, talking, telepathic,
   telepathy, tirade, tongue, touch, traffic, transmissional,
   trialogue, truck, two-way communication, unwritten, usage,
   use of words, usus loquendi, utterance, uttered, valediction,
   valedictory, valedictory address, verbal, verbalization, verbiage,
   vernacular, viva voce, vocal, vocalization, vocalized, voice,
   voiced, voiceful, voicing, wordage, wording, words, zeugma



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

SPEECH. A formal discourse in public.
     2. The liberty of speech is guaranteed to members of the legislature,
to counsel in court in debate.
     3. The reduction of a speech to writing and its publication is a libel,
if the matter contained in it is libelous; and the repetition of it upon
occasions not warranted by law, when the matter is slanderous, will be
slander and. tho character of the speaker will be no protection to him from
an action. 1 M. & S. 273; 1 Esp. C. 226 Bouv. Inst. Index, h.t. See Debate;
Liberty of speech.