wordy

[ wur-dee ]
See synonyms for: wordywordiness on Thesaurus.com

adjective,word·i·er, word·i·est.
  1. characterized by or given to the use of many, or too many, words; verbose: She grew impatient at his wordy reply.

  2. pertaining to or consisting of words; verbal.

Origin of wordy

1
First recorded before 1100; Middle English; Old English wordig.See word, -y1

synonym study For wordy

1. Wordy, prolix, redundant, pleonastic all mean using more words than necessary to convey a desired meaning. Wordy, the broadest and least specific of these terms, may, in addition to indicating an excess of words, suggest a garrulousness or loquaciousness: a wordy, gossipy account of a simple incident. Prolix refers to speech or writing extended to great and tedious length with inconsequential details: a prolix style that tells you more than you need or want to know. Redundant and pleonastic both refer to unnecessary repetition of language. Redundant has also a generalized sense of “excessive” or “no longer needed”: the dismissal of redundant employees. In describing language, it most often refers to overelaboration through the use of expressions that repeat the sense of other expressions in a passage: a redundant text crammed with amplifications of the obvious. Pleonastic, usually a technical term, refers most often to expressions that repeat something that has been said before: “A true fact” and “a free gift” are pleonastic expressions.

Other words for wordy

Other words from wordy

  • word·i·ly, adverb
  • word·i·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use wordy in a sentence

  • There was a vast amount of whisper and low-toned wordiness, subsurface complaint and counter-complaint.

    Dominie Dean | Ellis Parker Butler
  • Here is a writer who began literature with a sense of words, and who is declining into a mere sense of wordiness.

    The Art of Letters | Robert Lynd
  • An unnecessary profusion of words is called verbiage: verbosity, wordiness.

    The Verbalist | Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
  • They have the wordiness of hasty composition, and the discursive rhetoric intended to catch the attention of an indolent audience.

  • We witness its disastrous effects in the empty wordiness of many extemporaneous preachers.

British Dictionary definitions for wordy

wordy

/ (ˈwɜːdɪ) /


adjectivewordier or wordiest
  1. using, inclined to use, or containing an excess of words: a wordy writer; a wordy document

  2. of the nature of or relating to words; verbal

Derived forms of wordy

  • wordily, adverb
  • wordiness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012