From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishreported speechreˌported ˈspeech ●○○ noun [uncountable] technical SLGin grammar, words that are used to tell what someone says without repeating their actual words. ‘She said she didn’t feel well’ is an example of reported speech SYN indirect speech OPP direct speech
Examples from the Corpus
reported speech• The directives had no application to parliamentary proceedings or elections and allowed reported speech.• Consider, for example, reported speech.• In standard reported speech, the words of the speaker typically undergo certain rule-governed transformations affecting pronouns and verb tenses. 