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
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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
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has been prosingperfect progressive
Past
-
prosedsimple
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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
They select complementary textual threads from vast data warehouses and weave them together to create tapestries of prose.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
While the afternoons blazed, Tim sailed Melville’s waves of prose, alert to the rumble of an epic whale beneath their surface.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 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
The conventions of written prose represent a similar standardization.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
It contains drawings and proses which have nothing but a formal, not an illustrative or explanatory, relation to each other.
From Time Magazine Archive
Never mind how the pedagogue proses, You want not antiquity's stamp; A lip, that such fragrance discloses, Oh! never should smell of the lamp.
From The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes by William Michael Rossetti
There is a School-board Lady, but, alas, she is next the Warden of St. Jude's, not next the enthusiastic Clergyman, who proses about a Club for Milliners.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, April 23, 1892 by Various
He started by doing one prose and one "con" a week, instead of two proses and two "cons" like the rest of the form.
From The Loom of Youth by Alec Waugh
I never yawn when he proses, and his daughter does.
From Armadale by Wilkie Collins
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
No one talked but Ruskin, and he prosed, and his prose of speech was not his prose of pen.
From The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1 by Stephen Lucius Gwynn
He still prosed on, wrapped up in his own eloquence.
From Rainbow Valley by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
How he had argued and prosed for weeks as to whether they could afford these few days! although it was vacation, and Lufflin had sent free passes for the road.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 99, January, 1866 by Various
"I found a little grey hair this morning," Miss Searle incoherently prosed.
From A Passionate Pilgrim by Henry James
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
I wonder he didn’t stop drowned if he was surrounded by people who kept on prosing like you are.”
From Hunting the Skipper The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop by Harold Piffard
Nay, I am convinced, out and out, that by prosing for a while in periodical works I may maintain myself decently.
From Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends by John Keats
Hear Dryden prosing away upon paraphrase, and metaphrase, and imitation, in his very best style.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845 by Various
And, as if to put an end to the General's prosing, he turned to Montague Maynard.
From A Traitor's Wooing by Headon Hill
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.
