to speak fondly of
1
3.6
- phrasal verb
:
hablar con cariño de
- She continued, "Joseph speaks fondly of her."
- Many still speak fondly of
- spoke fondly of that time
Examples
-
Grosman speaks fondly of the buried woman and refers to her casually as "the witch," before quickly correcting herself with the more academic "shaman."
Academic text (2009) -
Aunt Joanna always spoke fondly of their tendency to wear shawls.
Fiction book (1995) -
Jenny spoke fondly of her imaginary siblings.
-
Woody spoke fondly of the Southern Cross, that constellation pointing the way.
Fiction book (2000) -
Garfunkel spoke fondly of opportunities to work independently with "freedom from incompetent teachers" and peers.
Academic text (2003) -
Of the former, many Indian landowners spoke fondly of good leasemen and the relationships maintained between Indian and non-Indian families as a result.
Academic text (2018) -
She spent some time aboard the Starship Enterprise, and she speaks fondly of a man named Wharf.
-
Witmer speaks fondly of his Mennonite upbringing, saying that he loves how the church maintains a very simple and forgiving approach for the most part.
Blog text (19) -
Verhoeven spoke fondly of Crusade, the famously never-produced period epic that would have reunited Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger in 1993.
Blog text (3) -
He often speaks fondly of his childhood memories spent at the family cabin by the lake.
Synonyms
4
6.1
Talk in a very excited way to praise someone or something
Antonyms
How Affectionate
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to talk about someone or something with affection' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'speak' (to talk) with the adverb 'fondly' (with affection) and the preposition 'of' (about). This is a regular compositional pattern (verb + manner adverb + preposition) found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Speak fondly of comes from the word fond, which means a warm liking; picture someone speaking with a soft smile and kind words about a person or place. That's why speak + fondly means 'to talk about someone or something with warm feelings'.