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An oration is a formal public speech, usually planned, and given to a group on a special day — a ceremony, a memorial, a graduation, a big meeting. It is not a chat, not a short hello, and not a lesson in class. The word feels rather grand and a little old; news and history books still like it, but in everyday talk people more often say speech. Though actually, there is also a verb, to orate, meaning to speak in that grand way, and people sometimes use it with a small smile, as if the speaker is being too fine for the room.
演說；正式公開演講（比日常說的「演講」更隆重）
組成Borrowed from Latin ōrātiō, ōrātiōnem: ōrō (“to speak / plead”) + -tiō (turns a verb into “the act of doing that”). Cognate with, and a doublet of, orison (an old word for a prayer) — same Latin parent, different later meanings.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
orationnoun/ɒˈɹeɪʃən/
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A formal, often ceremonial speech.
- a funeral oration; an impassioned oration; to make / deliver / pronounce an oration
- […] there is ſuch confuſion in my powers, / As after ſome Oration fairely ſpoke / By a beloued Prince, there doth appeare / Among the buzzing pleaſed multitude.
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A lengthy speech or argument in a private setting.
- My Landlord was likewiſe beginning his Oration to Jones, but was preſently interrupted by that generous Youth, who ſhook him heartily by the Hand; and aſſured him of entire Forgiveneſs […]
- Sally bustled off to set on the kettle for tea, and felt half ashamed, in the quiet of the kitchen, to think of the oration she had made in the parlour.
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CatholicismChristianityA specific form of short, solemn prayer said by the president of the liturgical celebration on behalf of the people.
orationverb/ɒˈɹeɪʃən/
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To deliver an oration; to speak.
- 1633, John Donne (attributed translator), The Auncient History of the Septuagint. Written in Greeke, by Aristeus 1900. yeares since, London, p. 80, cited in Henry Todd, A Dictionary of the English Language, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818, Volume 3, They gave answers with great sufficiency touching all difficulties concerning their own law, and had marvellous promptitude both for orationing and giving judgement.
- 1764, Samuel Foote, The Mayor of Garratt, Act II, in The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote, Dublin: S. Price et al., 1778, Volume 1, p. 286, […] Master Primmer is the man for my money; a man of learning; that can lay down the law: why, adzooks, he is wise enough to puzzle the parson: and then, how you have heard him oration at the Adam and Eve of a Saturday night, about Russia and Prussia […]
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。