orotund

American  

[awr-uh-tuhnd, ohr-] / ˈɔr əˌtʌnd, ˈoʊr- /

adjective

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

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

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orotund British  

/ ˈɒrəʊˌtʌnd /

adjective

1. (of the voice) resonant; booming

2. (of speech or writing) bombastic; pompous

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Other Word Forms

• orotundity noun

Etymology

Origin of orotund

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

Example Sentences

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

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 7, 2025

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.

From Washington Post • Dec. 30, 2022

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.”

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 13, 2022

Regardless of their vast intelligence, Buckley and Vidal performed on ABC not to gratify intellect but to signify it, like the orotund televised spokesman for classical-music highlights.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 17, 2015

Oratory was in the air; elocution was rampant; and to declaim in orotund, and gesticulate in curves, was regarded as the chief end of man.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 03 Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen by Hubbard, Elbert