1. [n]  the act of giving a talk to an audience; "I attended an interesting talk on local history"
2. [n]  an exchange of ideas via conversation; "let's have more work and less talk around here"
3. [n]  (`talk about' is a less formal alternative for `discussion of') discussion; "his poetry contains much talk about love and anger"
4. [n]  idle gossip or rumor; "there has been talk about you lately"
5. [n]  a speech that is open to the public; "he attended a lecture on telecommunications"
6. [v]  deliver a lecture or talk; "She will talk at Rutgers next week"; "Did you ever lecture at Harvard?"
7. [v]  divulge information or secrets; spill the beans; "Be careful--his secretary talks"
8. [v]  express in speech; "She talks a lot of nonsense"; "This depressed patient does not verbalize"
9. [v]  reveal information; let the cat out of the bag; "If you don't oblige me, I'll talk!"
10. [v]  exchange thoughts; talk with; "We often talk business"; "Actions talk louder than words"
11. [v]  use language; "the baby talks already"; "the prisoner won't speak"; "they speak a strange dialect"

Talk
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1. \Talk\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Talked}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Talking}.] [Cf. LG. talk talk, gabble, Prov. G. talken to
   speak indistinctly; or OD. tolken to interpret, MHG. tolkan
   to interpret, to tell, to speak indistinctly, Dan. tolke to
   interpret, Sw. tolka, Icel. t?lka to interpret, t?lkr an
   interpreter, Lith. tulkas an interpreter, tulkanti,
   tulk[=o]ti, to interpret, Russ. tolkovate to interpret, to
   talk about; or perhaps fr. OE. talien to speak (see {Tale},
   v. i. & n.).]
   1. To utter words; esp., to converse familiarly; to speak, as
      in familiar discourse, when two or more persons
      interchange thoughts.
            I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you,
            walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat
            with you.                             --Shak.
   2. To confer; to reason; to consult.
            Let me talk with thee of thy judgments. --Jer. xii.
                                                  1.
   3. To prate; to speak impertinently. [Colloq.]
   {To talk of}, to relate; to tell; to give an account of; as,
      authors talk of the wonderful remains of Palmyra. ``The
      natural histories of Switzerland talk much of the fall of
      these rocks, and the great damage done.'' --Addison.
   {To talk to}, to advise or exhort, or to reprove gently; as,
      I will talk to my son respecting his conduct. [Colloq.]
   

2. \Talk\, v. t.
   1. To speak freely; to use for conversing or communicating;
      as, to talk French.
   2. To deliver in talking; to speak; to utter; to make a
      subject of conversation; as, to talk nonsense; to talk
      politics.
   3. To consume or spend in talking; -- often followed by away;
      as, to talk away an evening.
   4. To cause to be or become by talking. ``They would talk
      themselves mad.'' --Shak.
   {To talk over}.
      (a) To talk about; to have conference respecting; to
          deliberate upon; to discuss; as, to talk over a matter
          or plan.
      (b) To change the mind or opinion of by talking; to
          convince; as, to talk over an opponent.
   

3. \Talk\, n.
   1. The act of talking; especially, familiar converse; mutual
      discourse; that which is uttered, especially in familiar
      conversation, or the mutual converse of two or more.
            In various talk the instructive hours they passed.
                                                  --Pope.
            Their talk, when it was not made up of nautical
            phrases, was too commonly made up of oaths and
            curses.                               --Macaulay.
   2. Report; rumor; as, to hear talk of war.
            I hear a talk up and down of raising our money.
                                                  --Locke.
   3. Subject of discourse; as, his achievment is the talk of
      the town.
   Syn: Conversation; colloquy; discourse; chat; dialogue;
        conference; communication. See {Conversation}.
   

A Unix program and protocol supporting conversation between two or more users who may be logged into the same computer or different computers on a network. Variants include ntalk, ytalk, and ports or emulators of these programs for other platforms.

Unix has the talk program and protocol and its variants xtalk and ytalk for the X Window System; VMS has phone; Windows for Workgroups has chat. ITS also has a talk system. These split the screen into separate areas for each user.

Unix's write command can also be used, though it does not attempt to separate input and output on the screen.

Users of such systems are said to be in talk mode which has many conventional abbreviations and idioms. Most of these survived into chat jargon, but many fell out of common use with the migration of user prattle from talk-like systems to chat systems in the early 1990s. These disused talk-specific forms include:

"BYE?" - are you ready to close the conversation? This is the standard way to end a talk-mode conversation; the other person types "BYE" to confirm, or else continues the conversation.

"JAM"/"MIN" - just a minute

"O" - "over" (I have stopped talking). Also "/" as in x/y - x over y, or two newlines (the latter being the most common).

"OO" - "over and out" - end of conversation.

"\" - Greek lambda.

"R U THERE?" - are you there?

"SEC" - wait a second.

"/\/\/" - laughter. But on a MUD, this usually means "earthquake fault".

See also talk bomb.