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gesticulation

ges·tic·u·la·tion/dʒɛˌstɪkjəˈleɪʃən/noun

gesticulation is a noun meaning “The act of gesticulating, or making gestures to aid expression of thoughts, sentiments or passion” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-E-S-T-I-C-U-L-A-T-I-O-N and has 5 syllables (ges·tic·u·la·tion), and it appears about once in every 36 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of gesticulation is gesticulations.

What does gesticulation mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The act of gesticulating, or making gestures to aid expression of thoughts, sentiments or passion.

  2. 2

    A gesture; a motion of the body or limbs when speaking, or in representing action or passion, and enforcing arguments and sentiments.

  3. 3

    datedAn odd or fanciful motion.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce gesticulation?

  • /dʒɛˌstɪkjəˈleɪʃən/

Gesticulation has 5 syllables, split ges·tic·u·la·tion in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-gesticulation.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of gesticulation

  • gesticulations plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is gesticulation?

Gesticulation appears about once in every 36 million words in written English, the 184,844th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Gesticulation in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense act of gesticulating:

LanguageWords
Frenchgesticulation
GermanGestikulierung, Gestik, Gebärdenspiel
Portuguesegesticulação
Spanishgesticulación

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does gesticulation come from?

From Middle English gesticulation, from Latin gesticulatio.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).