logorrhea
Americannoun
-
pathologically incoherent, repetitious speech.
-
incessant or compulsive talkativeness; wearisome volubility.
Other Word Forms
- logorrheic adjective
Etymology
Origin of logorrhea
Explanation
If someone's always mouthing off and just can't shut up, they've got logorrhea, a pathological inability to stop talking. Sounds better than "loudmouth." As its sound suggests, logorrhea is related to diarrhea — an inability to stop something far more unpleasant from flowing. Diarrhea comes from two Greek words put together, dia meaning "through" and rhein meaning "to flow." In the case of logorrhea, the log prefix is from the Greek word for "words," meaning literally "words flowing through." Technically speaking, logorrhea is an actual illness, unlike such similar terms for extreme chattiness such as loquacious or garrulous.
Vocabulary lists containing logorrhea
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"In praise and defense of grandiose, flowery, sesquipedalian words"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In 1991 Will Self disgorged himself on to the British literary scene with “The Quantity Theory of Insanity,” a book of short stories seething with misanthropy and logorrhea.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
The State Department suffers from institutional logorrhea, whereas career intelligence personnel generally make “Silent Cal” Coolidge seem chatty.
From Washington Post • May 25, 2022
One could say Brenda died as she lived, since she spent too much time putting up with Billy's logorrhea and bored easily.
From Salon • Jun. 3, 2021
But her tinny outrage and Tyler’s own dogmatic logorrhea begin to feel like exhibits in a playfully prickly riff on the inauthentic, the massaged and the cagily appropriated when telling stories.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 29, 2019
She was getting logorrhea herself now and— The answer finally hit him!
From Badge of Infamy by Del Rey, Lester
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
