speak of the devil
verb · n
Simple meaning
Mention someone's name who just then appears.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
speekuhvthuhduhvuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈspikəvðədɛvəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Mention someone's name who just then appears
n
"Speak of the devil" is the short form of the English-language idiom "Speak of the devil and he doth appear" (or its alternative form "speak of the devil and he shall appear").
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Mention someone's name who just then appears
Used this way, speak of the devil is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.