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; see oral ( def. ), rotund ( def. )

Explanation

If the reviews of your concert describe your singing as orotund, you can pop open the champagne — your reviewers have noticed your full, rich sound. On the other hand, if you've just given a speech and the TV commentators ridicule it as orotund, moralistic, and meaningless, you might want to drop out of sight for a few weeks. You've been called out for your pompous, self-important style. Orotund comes from the Latin word ore, "mouth," and rotundo, "make round." So orotund sounds are what you make with a rounded mouth, which is good if you're singing, but pretentious if you're not.

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

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

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

From Washington Post • Oct. 31, 2019

The Sénateur speaks in orotund donations—“I will give you a story,” or “Mon vieux, I have been haunted by a dream” —and is always resoundingly theatrical: “The Sénateur’s chortle had progressed to a guffaw.”

From The New Yorker • Mar. 21, 2016

More "clamant" than carmine, vermilion, crimson, Costlier than diamond or ultramarine— A deuce of a theme to chant lyrics or hymns on, Or rummage for orotund "rot," is Ruthene.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 by Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley), Sir