to write or talk in a dull, matter-of-fact manner.
Origin: 1300–50; Middle English < Middle French < Latin prōsa (ōrātiō) literally, straightforward (speech), feminine of prōsus, for prōrsus, contraction of prōversus, past participle of prōvertere to turn forward, equivalent to prō-pro-1 + vertere to turn
spoken or written language as in ordinary usage, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure
2.
a passage set for translation into a foreign language
3.
commonplace or dull discourse, expression, etc
4.
RC Church a hymn recited or sung after the gradual at Mass
5.
(modifier) written in prose
6.
(modifier) matter-of-fact
—vb
7.
to write or say (something) in prose
8.
(intr) to speak or write in a tedious style
[C14: via Old French from Latin phrase prōsa ōrātiō straightforward speech, from prorsus prosaic, from prōvertere to turn forwards, from pro-1 + vertere to turn]
early 14c., from O.Fr. prose (13c.), from L. prosa oratio "straightforward or direct speech" (without the ornaments of verse), from prosa, fem. of prosus, earlier prorsus "straightforward, direct," from Old L. provorsus "(moving) straight ahead," from pro- "forward" + vorsus "turned," pp. of vertere
1. PROblem Solution Engineering. Numerical problems including differentiation and integration. "Computing in Calculus", J. Thames, Research/Development 26(5) (May 1975). 2. A constraints-and-sequencing system similar to Kaleidoscope. "Reflexive Constraints for Dynamic Knowledge Bases", P. Berlandier et al in Proc First Intl CS Conf '88: AI: Theory and Appls, Dec 1988.