asseverate

—At this, the Boy suffered some Confusion, then to asseverate, My Tutor is deceased, Sir.

Why merely say something, when they can declare, assert, expostulate, announce, or asseverate it?

We asseverate it in a peculiarly earnest manner, or with increased positiveness as what can not be disputed.

People asseverate in order to produce a conviction of their veracity; they aver when they are peculiarly desirous to be believed; they protest when they wish to free themselves from imputations, or to produce a conviction of their innocence.

In vain did the author asseverate that he was delighted to see her; she rushed away without another word; but that evening she wrote him an ecstatic letter from her dressing-room about what it had meant to her and what it always would mean to her to think of his working like that for her.