prose
Americannoun
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proses
plural
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the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.
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matter-of-fact, commonplace, or dull expression, quality, discourse, etc.
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Liturgy. a hymn sung after the gradual, originating from a practice of setting words to the jubilatio of the alleluia.
adjective
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of, in, or pertaining to prose.
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commonplace; dull; prosaic.
verb (used with object)
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proses,
present (3rd person singular)
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prosed,
past participle, past
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prosing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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proses,
present (3rd person singular)
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prosed,
past participle, past
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prosing
present participle
noun
-
spoken or written language as in ordinary usage, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure
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a passage set for translation into a foreign language
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commonplace or dull discourse, expression, etc
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RC Church a hymn recited or sung after the gradual at Mass
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(modifier) written in prose
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(modifier) matter-of-fact
verb
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to write or say (something) in prose
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(intr) to speak or write in a tedious style
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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prosesimple
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prosessimple
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have prosedperfect
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has prosedperfect
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am prosingprogressive
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are prosingprogressive
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is prosingprogressive
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have been prosingperfect progressive
-
has been prosingperfect progressive
Past
-
prosedsimple
-
had prosedperfect
-
was prosingprogressive
-
were prosingprogressive
-
had been prosingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of prose
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin prōsa (ōrātiō), literally, “straightforward (speech),” feminine of prōsus, prōrsus, contraction of prōversus “turned forward,” past participle of prōvertere “to turn forward,” equivalent to prō- pro- 1 + vertere “to turn”
Explanation
Prose is so-called "ordinary writing" — made up of sentences and paragraphs, without any metrical (or rhyming) structure. If you write, "I walked about all alone over the hillsides," that's prose. If you say, "I wondered lonely as a cloud/that floats on high o'er vales and hills" that's poetry. See the difference? (Let's not get into prose poetry!) From prose we get the term prosaic, meaning "ordinary" or "commonplace," or lacking the specially delicacy and beauty of its supposed opposite — poetry.
Vocabulary lists containing prose
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Literary Terms, Grade 6, Unit 1
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Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
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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.
See Examples For:
It’s very sentimental — which the novel, with its matter-of-fact, if sensually evocative prose, and it’s child’s eye view, is not.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
But his impenetrable prose -- used to avoid committing to any particular course -- and his confidence in unfettered markets and institutions to correct themselves frustrated critics, who believed the US economy needed stronger guardrails.
From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026
But as with the prose, gradual changes in policy may have advantages over a rush to transform the Powell Fed into the Warsh Fed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
Market participants are accustomed to Powell-style prose and lightly scripted press conferences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
Drafted mostly by Szilard with Einstein’s input, the two-page, eight-paragraph document buries the urgency of the situation under dry and conditional prose, its momentousness communicated largely by Einstein’s signature at the bottom.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
It contains drawings and proses which have nothing but a formal, not an illustrative or explanatory, relation to each other.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was Fun to write jolly compositions and Fun to set proses out of George Meredith which bore no relation to classical thought or idiom and couldn't conceivably be translated into reasonable Latin or Greek.
From Years of Plenty by Brown, Ivor
By day he teaches his own particular subject; by night he looks over proses or corrects algebra papers.
From The Lighter Side of School Life by Hay, Ian
Never mind how the pedagogue proses, You want not antiquity's stamp, The lip that's so scented by roses, Oh! never must smell of the lamp.
From The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe by Parton, James
Macallester next proses endlessly on the alleged Jesuit connection with Damien’s attack on Lous XV., and insists that the Jesuits, nobody knows why, meant to assassinate Prince Charles.
From Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles by Lang, Andrew
A similar bill prosed in the Senate would change visitation restrictions specifically for nursing homes, although the measure has not yet been placed on the Legislature’s agenda.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 3, 2021
But I think I have prosed enough for one sitting, and it is growing late—one o’clock, as I am a living sinner!—and you must be growing tired.
From The Adventures of Dick Maitland A Tale of Unknown Africa by Ball, Alec
"And yet he doesn't look in the least an Englishman," she still rather guardedly prosed.
From A Passionate Pilgrim by James, Henry
For exactly twenty-one minutes she prosed on uninterruptedly, like a stream flowing over its bed; never stopped to take breath once.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Mitford, Bertram
When Streatham spread its pleasant board, I opened learning's valued hoard, And as I feasted, prosed.
From Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings by Piozzi, Hester Lynch
Most of the time all the spectator sees is Spencer Tracy sitting in a rowboat and mumbling to himself, and all he hears is Hemingway's own narrative prosing along the sound track.
From Time Magazine Archive
“And I shall be deservedly hanged,” say you, wishing to put an end to this prosing.
From Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by Saintsbury, George
The first half volume is rather tiresome—giving us four times as much as necessary of the uncultivated youth's early prosing on crude moralities, etc.
From Harriet Martineau by Miller, Florence Fenwick
"Sir," said Dr. Johnson, to some prosing tormentor, "I would rather a man would knock me down, than to begin to talk to me of the Punic wars."
From Practical Education, Volume II by Edgeworth, Maria
She wanted Wagram to herself, and here Gibson sat prosing his tiresome old sea yarns.
From The Red Derelict by Mitford, Bertram
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.
