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oral

[awr-uhl, ohr-]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

uttered by the mouth; spoken: oral testimony.

of, using, or transmitted by speech: oral methods of language teaching; oral traditions.

of, pertaining to, or involving the mouth: the oral cavity.

done, taken, or administered through the mouth: an oral dose of medicine.

Phonetics. articulated with none of the voice issuing through the nose, as the normal English vowels and the consonants b and v.

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Psychoanalysis.

of or pertaining to the earliest phase of infantile psychosexual development, lasting from birth to one year of age or longer, during which pleasure is obtained from eating, sucking, and biting.

of or pertaining to the sublimation of feelings experienced during the oral stage of childhood: oral anxiety.

of or pertaining to gratification by stimulation of the lips or membranes of the mouth, as in sucking, eating, or talking

Zoology. pertaining to that surface of polyps and marine animals that contains the mouth and tentacles.

COLLAPSE

noun

an oral examination in a school, college, or university, given especially to a candidate for an advanced degree.

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Oral is always a great word to know.

So is dark. Does it mean:

the adjustments and movements of speech organs involved in pronouncing a particular sound, taken as a whole

back-vowel resonance in the 'l' sound when situated after a vowel in the same syllable

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Origin:
1615–25; < Latin ōr- (stem of ōs) mouth (cognate with Sanskrit āsya) + -al¹

Related forms

o·ral·i·ty, noun

o·ral·ly, adverb

non·o·ral, adjective

non·o·ral·ly, adverb

post·o·ral, adjective

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sub·o·ral, adjective

un·o·ral, adjective

un·o·ral·ly, adverb

COLLAPSE

Can be confused: aural, oral, verbal, written (see usage note at verbal).

Usage note
1. See verbal.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To oral

Example Sentences

Oral cholecystogram is an x-ray of the gallbladder, an organ in the right upper abdomen that stores bile.

That's how many graduate students imagine their oral exam.

Oral appliances that tilt the palate open as well as surgical procedures are also treatments.

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Oral cholecystogram is an x-ray of the gallbladder, an organ in the right upper abdomen that stores bile.

That's how many graduate students imagine their oral exam.

Oral appliances that tilt the palate open as well as surgical procedures are also treatments.

In this lesson, students will prepare an oral presentation to describe the changes in a neighborhood over a period of years.

My dentist has been checking for oral cancers for years.

In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition.

Wild prairie dogs may soon get a dose of something extra in their daily diet: an oral vaccine against the plague.

They include short-acting and long-acting forms, and come in oral pill and nasal spray forms.

Particularly since retiring, the oral historian has pumped out volumes at a rate of about three books every two years.

Some is the synthetic stuff used in oral contraceptives.

We are currently working on an oral plague vaccine for prairie dogs.

Oral and armpit temperatures can approximate actual body temperature and are more convenient to measure.

America's best-known oral historian tells his own story.

Several of them wondered why people are obsessed with oral hygiene.

But it is the oral drugs that seem to be causing a disproportionate number of financial problems for cancer patients.

Technically, it's a mondegreen, a misheard or misapprehended oral expression.

Yet progress is being made in both countries on an oral vaccine against cholera, said to offer protection to infants.

Evaluate students' work based on the amount of detail and accuracy in oral and written presentations and on their use of research.

I've even had to answer questions on evolution during my oral defense.

The museum has several interatives which includes a oral history, and trades exhibit.

Oral arguments are adjourned, and people are filing out of the courtroom.

Effective oral and written communication skills also required.

Condoms and oral contraceptives are subsidised by charities or donor governments.

They will present their findings in oral presentations.

Also, they only gave the coffee twice week in the oral long term study.

In the transition from an oral to a more textual tradition, curious resonances crop up.

The judges revealed little during oral arguments in the autumn.

Traditionally an oral work, the only manuscript of the poem was tragically burned during the nation's civil war.

In lab testing, the oral vaccine protected prairie dogs against plague better than a vaccine given by shot.

Promotions are based on seniority and on performance in a written and oral exanination.

Evaluate students' work based on the amount of detail and accuracy in oral and written presentations and on the use of research.

Oral communication was impractical for running a large state so a written language was created.

We need cooperation to address the global growth issue, but meaningless oral fighting.

Evidence is mainly in writing, with little oral testimony and many opportunities for delay.

There was an air of scepticism during last month's oral arguments.

Cavities are one thing, but gum disease and oral cancer are dental problems that can have even more serious consequences.

The study suggests that there are other important health reasons why oral contraceptives should be readily.

Oral recently took a course and where he has promoted the site.

Half the children had taken oral antibiotics within the first six months of birth.

The exhibition will take a concept that was traditionally oral and translate it in a number of contemporary visual forms.

They probably rued the day reading replaced oral storytelling.

The study suggests that there are other important health reasons why oral contraceptives.

Plus, since the drug is injected, it could be a good alternative for women who have adverse reactions to oral contraceptives.

But participating in oral argument shows the public that justices do their own thinking and their own work.

Strong oral and written communication skills and ability to manage multiple projects also required.

As a result, many of the oral histories and legends of previous eras were lost.

Of course oral contraception changes a woman's hormonal cycles.

Their oral traditions accounted for the fossils and attempted to explain the creatures' destruction.

Schube, an oral surgeon, were married yesterday at.

The oral histories of people who were there or who had lost someone in the attacks.

There is no doubt that lengthy argument about disputed facts in oral hearings would be counter-productive.

Nicotine patches quell the temper, but do nothing for the oral fixation that is a ciggy.

The start-up's founders see the project as a tool for citizen journalism and oral history as well as entertainment.

Ability to make effective oral and written presentations.

Hers instead is an oral history that lifts the spirits and warms the heart.

Have each group prepare an oral and visual presentations.

Lack of oral hygiene, such as not brushing or flossing regularly, encourages bacterial buildup and plaque formation.

Strong oral and written communication skills and demonstrated organizational abilities and leadership skills.

He devoted himself to traveling the district, listening to the rune singers and committing the oral poetry to the written word.

They are an oral history of an art form created out of pragmatism, experimentation, instinct and luck.

Ability to advocate for important issues using clear and effective written and oral communication skills.

Much of what humans know about nature is encoded only in oral languages.

In those countries the children are given oral polio drops.

After his oral presentation the agent put on the table between us an unfolded one-page letter that was addressed to.

Watch an oral argument before the highest court in the land by lining up early for first-come, first-seated.

Audiences for oral presentations and poster sessions at academic conferences often want more information about a particular topic.

Children with diarrhoea are given oral rehydration salts, which cost a few cents.

Students should use the available resources to answer these questions in writing, or by creating a small group oral report:.

Have the students compile their findings into oral presentations or posters.

There are petroglyphs and pictographs depicting them which lends some weight to that oral history.

Tell students to prepare a three to five minute oral presentation on their feature.

Real and mythical forest animals populate the tribe's oral traditions.

Also oral deworming medication is administered to help give the kittens a healthy start.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

oral (ˈɔːrəl, ˈɒrəl)

—*adj*
1.	spoken or verbal: an oral agreement
2.	relating to, affecting, or for use in the mouth: an oral thermometer
3.	of or relating to the surface of an animal, such as a jellyfish, on which the mouth is situated
4.	Compare parenteral denoting a drug to be taken by mouth: an oral contraceptive
5.	of, relating to, or using spoken words
6.	phonetics pronounced with the soft palate in a raised position completely closing the nasal cavity and allowing air to pass out only through the mouth
7.	psychoanal
	a. relating to a stage of psychosexual development during which the child's interest is concentrated on the mouth
	b. anal genital Compare phallic denoting personality traits, such as dependence, selfishness, and aggression, resulting from fixation at the oral stage

—n
8.	an examination in which the questions and answers are spoken rather than written

[C17: from Late Latin orālis, from Latin ōs face]

'orally

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

oral

1625, from L.L. oralis, from L. os (gen. oris) "mouth, opening, face, entrance," from PIE *os-/*ous- "mouth" (cf. Skt. asan "mouth," asyam "mouth, opening," Avestan ah-, Hittite aish, M.Ir. a "mouth," O.N. oss "mouth of a river," O.E. or "beginning, origin, front"). Psychological meaning "of the mouth

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as the focus of infantile sexual energy" (e.g. oral fixation) is from 1910. The sexual sense is first recorded 1948, in Kinsey.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

oral o·ral (ôr'əl)
adj.

Of or relating to the mouth.
Used in or taken through the mouth.
Of or relating to the first stage of psychosexual development in psychoanalytic theory, in which the mouth is the focus of exploration and pleasure.

o'ral·ly adv.

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

oral (ôr'əl) Pronunciation Key
Relating to or involving the mouth.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

Oral

city, western Kazakhstan, along the Ural (Zhayyq) River. Founded in 1613 or 1622 by Cossacks fleeing a tsarist punitive campaign, it was known as Yaitsky Gorodok until 1775, when its name was changed following the Pugachov Rebellion. The town was a centre of both the Stenka Razin (1667) and Yemelyan Pugachov (1773) uprisings and was the headquarters of the Ural Cossacks. It had a lively trade with European Russia in fish from the Ural River and livestock products from the Kazakh steppes. Its commercial importance began to decline in the early 20th century when the new railway to Turkistan bypassed it. Oral's industries today include leather and footwear, meatpacking, flour milling, some engineering, and a licorice works. The city has teacher-training and agricultural institutes, the oldest theatre in Kazakhstan, and a museum with historic Cossack mementos

Learn more about Oral with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Matching Quote

"The Americans are violently oral.... That's why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn't respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth."

-W.H. Auden

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