Noun | 1. | say - the chance to speak; "let him have his say" |
Verb | 1. | say - express in words; "He said that he wanted to marry her"; "tell me what is bothering you"; "state your opinion"; "state your name" |
2. | say - report or maintain; "He alleged that he was the victim of a crime"; "He said it was too late to intervene in the war"; "The registrar says that I owe the school money" | |
3. | say - express a supposition; "Let us say that he did not tell the truth"; "Let's say you had a lot of money--what would you do?" Synonyms: suppose | |
4. | say - have or contain a certain wording or form; "The passage reads as follows"; "What does the law say?" Synonyms: read | |
5. | say - state as one's opinion or judgement; declare; "I say let's forget this whole business" | |
6. | say - utter aloud; "She said `Hello' to everyone in the office" | |
7. | say - give instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority; "I said to him to go home"; "She ordered him to do the shopping"; "The mother told the child to get dressed" | |
8. | say - speak, pronounce, or utter in a certain way; "She pronounces French words in a funny way"; "I cannot say `zip wire'"; "Can the child sound out this complicated word?" | |
9. | say - recite or repeat a fixed text; "Say grace"; "She said her `Hail Mary'" | |
10. | say - communicate or express nonverbally; "What does this painting say?"; "Did his face say anything about how he felt?" | |
11. | say - indicate; "The clock says noon" |
say - A human may "say" things to a computer by typing them on a
terminal. "To list a directory verbosely, say "ls -l"."
Tends to imply a newline-terminated command (a "sentence"). A computer may "say" things to you, even if it doesn't have a speech synthesiser, by displaying them on a terminal in response to your commands. This usage often confuses mundanes. |