Word of the Day

Friday, March 01, 2002

prolix

\pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\ , adjective;

Extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy.

Tending to speak or write at excessive length.

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Quotes:

It was a cumbersome book, widely criticized for being prolix in style and maddeningly circular in argument.

-- Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect", The Atlantic, May 2001

Montaigne is a little too prolix in his determination to tell us almost everything that happens as he fishes his way across the country, and he gives us a few too many accounts of the people he meets and of their repetitiously gloomy opinions.

-- Adam Hochschild, "Deep Wigglers of the Volga", New York Times, June 28, 1998

Greenspan, on the other hand, is given to prolix comments whose sentences are hung like Christmas trees with dependent clauses.

-- John M. Berry, "Greenspan: A Man Aware of Feasibility", Washington Post, June 14, 1987

Origin:

Prolix is derived from Latin prolixus, "poured forth, overflowing, extended, long," from pro-, "forward" + liquere, "to be fluid."