orotund

[awr-uh-tuhnd, ohr-]

adjective

1. (of the voice or speech) characterized by strength, fullness, richness, and clearness.

2. (of a style of speaking) pompous or bombastic.

orotund

/ ˈɒrəʊˌtʌnd /

adjective

1. (of the voice) resonant; booming

2. (of speech or writing) bombastic; pompous

Other Word Forms

• orotundity noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of orotund¹

1785–95; contraction of Latin phrase ōre rotundō, with round mouth; oral ( def. ), rotund ( def. )

Word History and Origins

Origin of orotund¹

C18: from Latin phrase ore rotundo with rounded mouth

Example Sentences

Its orotund prose certainly differs from the lean muscularity of the Second Inaugural or the elegiac concision of the Gettysburg Address.

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But the extravagance of Tudor self-aggrandizement is almost comical, and it wasn’t limited to the orotund Henry plastering his face onto biblical kings.

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In the title story, for instance, the narrator combines the orotund diction of a robot with little comets of slang, “super nice,” “killing it,” in a way more manufactured than anything in “Tenth of December.”

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The more strained our circumstances, the more manic the publicity machine, the more breathless and orotund the advance praise.

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But now the speaker’s orotund oratory, his mannered put-downs, his pompous, practiced, often hilarious jawing will be no more.

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