Definition of uptalk
: speech in which each clause, sentence, etc., ends like a question with a rising inflection
- Starting in America with the Valley Girls of the 1980s …, uptalk became common among young women across the country by the 1990s.
- —Douglas Quenqua, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2012
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uptalk
or less commonly up-talk intransitive verb uptalked also up-talked; uptalking also up-talking; uptalks also up-talks-
- … girls in my high school who used to buy expensive sandwiches and uptalk.
- —Amy Sohn, New York Post, 14 Sept. 1999
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- The road to job success starts after you study up on these 10 real-world work rules. … 2 Don't up-talk. Speaking in a singsong voice and posing statements as if they were questions leave you sounding girlie and unsure.
- —Colleen Rush, Cosmopolitan, January 2006
