Bespeak \Be*speak"\, v. i. To speak. [Obs.] --Milton.
Bespeak \Be*speak"\, n. A bespeaking. Among actors, a benefit (when a particular play is bespoken.) ``The night of her bespeak.'' --Dickens.
Bespeak \Be*speak"\, v. t. [imp. {Bespoke}, {Bespake} (Archaic); p. p. {Bespoke}, {Bespoken}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Bespeaking}.] [OE. bispeken, AS. besprecan, to speak to, accuse; pref. be- + sprecan to speak. See {Speak}.] 1. To speak or arrange for beforehand; to order or engage against a future time; as, to bespeak goods, a right, or a favor.
Concluding, naturally, that to gratify his avarice was to bespeak his favor. --Sir W. Scott.
2. To show beforehand; to foretell; to indicate.
[They] bespoke dangers . . . in order to scare the allies. --Swift.
3. To betoken; to show; to indicate by external marks or appearances.
When the abbot of St. Martin was born, he had so little the figure of a man that it bespoke him rather a monster. --Locke.
4. To speak to; to address. [Poetic]
He thus the queen bespoke. --Dryden.
But from the river below, bay windows and balconies bespeak a rich residence designed to take private advantage of a stupendous site.
Of course, if Manet is to have anything to do with it. But these are profound questions, that bespeak a whole ramification of art-historical possibility.
The Unreviewable Award, for the worst passage in a law-review article, went to this entry: "Do the frequent instances today of the lawyer and director bespeak brazenness?
"The mass behaviors, such as the Minnesota hanky waving and noise making, bespeak a search for the kind of community involvement that's hard to come by in today's big metropolitan areas, and in that sense it's positive," he said.