as in to mouth (off)
to talk as if giving an important and formal speech
an arrogant scholar who never passes up an opportunity to posture and perorate on stunningly unimportant matters
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Recent Examples of perorate
As a black spiritual hums on the soundtrack, Hooded Justice perorates about the legacy of being the victim—not the complicit or recruited perpetrator—of violence:
My mama played the piano right over there.
—
Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 24 Mar. 2020
Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 24 Mar. 2020
Recent Examples of Synonyms for perorate
Verb
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Responding officers found bloody items in a nearby dumpster and spoke with neighbors who recalled seeing Ali before the police arrived.—
Angel Saunders,
PEOPLE,
14 Jan. 2026
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Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith all committed to staying put when speaking to reporters on Tuesday at a preseason press conference.—
Ryan Morik,
FOXNews.com,
14 Jan. 2026
Verb
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Cage and Hay also gave a recital in conjunction with a lecture by W. F. Way, who discoursed on the need for a yacht harbor in Santa Monica.—
Alex Ross,
New Yorker,
21 Dec. 2025
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The cycle can become so accidentally ubiquitous that the former kids who blissfully existed outside of whatever discourses these trends or bands started in their heyday wonder now, as adults, what was so bad about them in the first place.—
Brittany Spanos,
Rolling Stone,
21 July 2025
Verb
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The tone was all the more remarkable because Desmond had previously spoken admiringly of Rodgers’ coaching capabilities and did not harangue him as supporters did when Rodgers abruptly left Celtic for Leicester City in 2019.—
Michael Walker,
New York Times,
28 Oct. 2025
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Truman would never have harangued the international community that America is First, or obstructed every effort to better the lot of humanity by asking what’s in it for the U.S., not in coming decades but during this news cycle.—
Andreas Kluth,
Mercury News,
26 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Perorate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/perorate. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
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