Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday June 6, 2001
rotund \roh-TUHND\ , adjective:
1. Round; circular; spherical.
2. Rounded in figure; plump; chubby.
3. Full and rich in sound; sonorous.
Leonardo squints up through one eye at Mathurine's impossibly rotund face peering down from a platter of turnips and beans.
-- R.M. Berry, Leonardo's Horse
. . .an expansive, down-to-earth man who is rotund in the way classic chefs used to be -- a walking advertisement for his own cooking.
-- Molly O'Neill, "Nuova England", New York Times, January 9, 1994
He had been small, rotund, and haughtily timid, his stomach protruding slightly in an upward jutting slope that brought into prominence the buttons of his waistcoat and trousers, marking the exact centre of his body with the obstetric line seen on fruits, -- the inevitable arc produced by heavy rounds of burgundy, schlagsahne, and beer.
-- Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
First, he has chosen the immensely difficult form of an epistolary novel -- plus diaries and articles -- and so depends on a rotund pastiche of 19th-century phrase-making and formalities.
-- Richard Holmes, "Hot and Bothered in Paris and London", New York Times, February 8, 1987
Rotund comes from Latin rotundus, "round" from rota, "a wheel."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rotund
