English

Alternative forms

• forespeak

Verb

forspeak ‎(third-person singular simple present forspeaks, present participle forspeaking, simple past forspoke, past participle forspoken)

1. (transitive, now historical) To charm; bewitch.
   • 1601, Thomas Campion, ‘So tyr'd are all my thoughts’:

     How are my powres fore-spoke? what strange distaste is this?

   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 180:

     Thus if any inhabitant of mid-sixteenth-century Maidstone suspected that he had been forspoken, he would go off for advice to one Kiterell, a sorcerer who lived at Bethersden […].

2. (transitive, Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To injure or cause bad luck through immoderate praise or flattery; affect with the curse of an evil tongue, which brings ill luck upon all objects of its praise.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To forbid; prohibit. [15th-19th c.]

   Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars, And say'st, it is not fit. ― Shakespeare.

Anagrams

• speak for

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English forspeken ‎(“to bewitch”), from Old English forsprecan ‎(“to speak in vain, speak amiss, denounce, deny”).

Verb

tae forspeak

1. To bewitch, cast a spell over, especially accompanied by undue praise or flattery, seduce