speaking trumpet

English

Noun

speaking trumpet (plural speaking trumpets)

  1. A megaphone (of the older, non-electric kind).
    • 1866, Wilkie Collins, Armadale, Book the First/Chapter IV: The Shadow of the Past:
      He passed his arm round a rope to steady himself, made a speaking-trumpet of his hands, and suddenly dropped them again without uttering a sound.
    • 1840, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, Chapter XXVII:
      A short, square-built man, in a rough grey jacket, with a speaking-trumpet in hand, stood in the weather hammock nettings.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan.
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