Word of the Day Archive
Tuesday January 18, 2005
voluble \VOL-yuh-buhl\ , adjective:
1. Characterized by a ready flow of speech.
2. Easily rolling or turning; rotating.
3. (Botany) Having the power or habit of turning or twining.
Rostow was voluble, exuberant and full of good and sometimes foolish ideas.
-- Kai Bird, The Color of Truth
Two glasses of wine made him voluble and three made him bellicose, sentimental and sometimes slurred.
-- "How Nixon turned into Tricky Dicky", Daily Telegraph, March 9, 1999
He listened patiently and with quiet amusement to my enthusiasm. Indeed, this turned out to be our pattern: I, more ignorant but more voluble, would babble on, while he would offer an occasional objection or refinement.
-- Phillip Lopate, Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Her tongue, so voluble and kind,
It always runs before her mind.
-- Matthew Prior, "Truth and Falsehood"
Voluble derives from Latin volubilis, "revolving, rolling, fluent," from volvere, "to roll."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for voluble
