lecture

From Middle English lecture, lectour, letture, letteur, lettur, lectury, from Medieval Latin or Late Latin lectura (“reading”), from Latin lectus, past participle of legō (“I read, I recite”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛk.t͡ʃɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛktʃə(ɹ)

lecture (plural lectures)

1. A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group.

   During class today the professor delivered an interesting lecture.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

2. (by extension) A class that primarily consists of a (weekly or other regularly held) lecture (as in sense 1), usually at college or university.

   We will not have lecture tomorrow.

   Lecture notes are online.

3. A berating or scolding, especially if lengthy, formal or given in a stern or angry manner.

   I really don't want you to give me a lecture about my bad eating habits.

4. (obsolete) The act of reading.

   the lecture of Holy Scripture

• (adj.): acroamatic

lecture (third-person singular simple present lectures, present participle lecturing, simple past and past participle lectured)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To teach (somebody) by giving a speech on a given topic.

   The professor lectured to two classes this morning.

2. (transitive) To preach, to berate, to scold.

   Emily's father lectured her about the importance of being home before midnight.

   • 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18:

     The dispatches […] also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.

• See also Thesaurus:reprehend

• lect.
• lecturer

• analects
• lectern
• lection
• lesson

• (adj.): acroamatic

• truecel

Borrowed from Late Latin lēctūra, feminine of Classical Latin lēctūrus.

• IPA^(key): /lɛk.tyʁ/

• audio

  (file)

lecture f (plural lectures)

1. reading (act or process of reading, interpretation, material read, and some other senses)

   redonner à quelqu’un le goût de la lecture ― to rekindle the love of reading

2. playback (the replaying of something previously recorded, especially sound or moving images)

   appareil de lecture ― playback device

3. play (an instance of watching or listening to digital media)

• lecteur
• leçon
• lire

• “lecture”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• lecteur

lēctūre

1. vocative masculine singular of lēctūrus