speaking trumpet

English

Noun

speaking trumpet (plural speaking trumpets)

1. A megaphone (of the older, non-electric kind).
   • 1866, Wilkie Collins, Armadale, Book the First/Chapter IV: The Shadow of the Past:

     He passed his arm round a rope to steady himself, made a speaking-trumpet of his hands, and suddenly dropped them again without uttering a sound.

   • 1840, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., chapter XXVII, in Two Years Before the Mast:

     A short, square-built man, in a rough grey jacket, with a speaking-trumpet in hand, stood in the weather hammock nettings.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     There was a battered brass speaking-trumpet, very discoloured, a tambourine, a musical-box, and a number of smaller objects.