Allocution
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A formal speech, especially one which is regarded as authoritative and forceful. countable, uncountable
"The Minister of War, in a barrack-square allocution to the officers of the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had declared the national honour sold to foreigners."
- 2 (rhetoric) a formal or authoritative address that advises or exhorts wordnet
- 3 The question put to a convicted defendant by a judge after the rendering of the verdict in a trial, in which the defendant is asked whether he or she wishes to make a statement to the court before sentencing; the statement made by a defendant in response to such a question; the legal right of a defendant to make such a statement. US, countable, uncountable
"The term "allocution" refers to the personal right of a defendant to make a statement on his own behalf in an attempt to affect sentencing. . . . The word "allocution" is also frequently used . . . to describe the statement made by a defendant during a guilty plea proceeding."
- 4 The legal right of a victim, in some jurisdictions, to make a statement to a court prior to sentencing of a defendant convicted of a crime causing injury to that victim; the actual statement made to a court by a victim. US, countable, uncountable
"As of July, 1985, 19 states permitted victim allocution at the sentencing phase of criminal trials."
- 5 A pronouncement by a pope to an assembly of church officials concerning a matter of church policy. countable, uncountable
"The recent papal allocution To the International Congress on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas has been the occasion for much discussion concerning the use of artificial feeding tubes for nutrition and hydration."
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- 6 The mode of information dissemination in which media broadcasts are transmitted to multiple receivers with no or very limited capability of a two-way exchange of information. countable, uncountable
"Allocution is the dissemination of information by a central unit towards a collectivity of decentral units, the central unit being both the source and the determining actor."
Example
More examples"The Minister of War, in a barrack-square allocution to the officers of the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had declared the national honour sold to foreigners."
Etymology
From Latin allocūtiō (“address”).