indirect speech

British

noun

Also called: reported speech. the reporting of something said or written by conveying what was meant rather than repeating the exact words, as in the sentence He asked me whether I would go as opposed to He asked me, "Will you go?"

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Instead of omniscient narrators, they deployed free indirect speech to reveal characters’ innermost thoughts.

From The Wall Street Journal

This “free indirect speech” allowed the reader to see, think and feel exactly as the character did while also maintaining a critical distance and the ability to move between various points of view.

From Economist

Readers generally find that direct speech is more vivid than indirect speech, and there’s evidence to tie this to specific processes in the brain.

From Time

She cares nothing for the circumscribed style of narration known as “free indirect speech,” enshrined as the one true method by the critic James Wood in his book How Fiction Works.

From Slate

Over time, MacFarquhar developed a style that relied heavily on free indirect speech, a device common to novels but rare in non-fiction, where a character’s voice momentarily creeps into the narration unannounced.

From The Guardian

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023