[f. SPEECH sb.1 + -LET.] A short speech.

1

1881.  Sir W. Harcourt, in Daily News, 28 Nov., 3/5. He speaks in the fashion—I don’t know whether I should not call them speechlets—very much of the feuilletons of the French romances.

2

1896.  Westm. Gaz., 13 March, 7/3. Leaving out of account speechlets by Mr. B. L. Thompson,… Lord Carrington [etc.].

3

  So Speechling. [-LING1 2.]

4

1880.  Trollope, Cicero, I. 226. ‘I will send you,’ he says, ‘the speechlings which you require.’

5