prose

See also: pro se

English

Prose Edda in ancient manuscript.

Printed prose followed by verses on the same page for illustration

Etymology

Used in English since 1330, from French prose, from Latin prōsa (“straightforward”) from the term prōsa ōrātiō (“a straightforward speech- i.e. without the ornaments of verse”). The term prōsa (“straightforward”) is a colloquial form of prorsa (“straight forwards”) which is the feminine form of prorsus (“straight forwards”), from Old Latin prōvorsus (“moving straight ahead”), from pro- (“forward”) + vorsus (“turned”), form of vertō (“I turn”). Compare verse.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹəʊz/
• Rhymes: -əʊz

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: pros

Noun

prose (usually uncountable, plural proses)

1. Language, particularly written language, not intended as poetry.

   Though known mostly for her prose, she also produced a small body of excellent poems.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost (1st ed)‎^[1]:

     ...Or if Sion Hill
     Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow’d
     Faft by the Oracle of God; I thence
     Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
     That with no middle flight intends to soar
     Above th’ Ionian Mounts while it pursues
     Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime...

2. Language which evinces little imagination or animation; dull and commonplace discourse.
   • 1888, Henry James, Partial Portraits‎^[2], Macmillan:

     ...the vehicle is plodding prose, but the effect is none the less poignant. And in regard to this I may say that in a hundred places in Trollope the extremity of pathos is reached by the homeliest means.

3. (Roman Catholicism) A hymn with no regular meter, sometimes introduced into the Mass.
   • 1699, A new ecclesiastical history‎^[3]:

     Proses are parts of the Office of the Mass which are sung just before the Gospel, upon great Festivals. The French also call those Rhythmical Hymns Proses, which are sung in their Offices in the Church of Rome, in which Rhime only, and not Quantity of Syllables, is observed.

Antonyms

• poetry, verse

Derived terms

• prose poem
• purple prose

Related terms

• prosaic
• prosody

Translations

written language not intended as poetry

• Albanian: prozë (sq) f
• Arabic: نَثْر m (naṯr)
• Armenian: արձակ (hy) (arjak)
• Azerbaijani: nəsr
• Basque: prosa
• Belarusian: про́за f (próza)
• Bengali: গদ্য (goddo)
• Bulgarian: про́за (bg) f (próza)
• Burmese: စုဏ္ဏိယ (my) (cunni.ya.)
• Catalan: prosa (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 散文 (zh) (sǎnwén)

• Czech: próza (cs) f
• Danish: prosa (da) c
• Dutch: proza (nl) n, ondicht (nl) n (archaic, literary)
• Esperanto: prozo
• Estonian: proosa
• Faroese: óbundið mál n, prosa f, skaldskapur á óbundnum máli m
• Finnish: proosa (fi)
• French: prose (fr) f
• Galician: prosa (gl) f
• Georgian: პროზა (ṗroza)
• German: Prosa (de) f
• Greek: πεζογραφία (el) f (pezografía)
• Hebrew: פְּרוֹזָה (he) f (prozá)
• Hindi: गद्य (hi) (gadya)
• Hungarian: próza (hu)
• Icelandic: prósa f
• Indonesian: prosa (id)
• Italian: prosa (it) f
• Japanese: 散文 (ja) (さんぶん, sanbun)
• Javanese: gancaran
• Kazakh: проза (kk) (proza)
• Khmer: ពាក្យរាយ (piek riey), ពាក្យលាត (piek liet)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Korean: 산문 (ko) (sanmun) (散文 (ko))
• Kyrgyz: проза (proza)
• Lao: ຮ້ອຽແກ້ວ (hǭi kǣu)
• Latvian: proza f
• Lithuanian: proza f
• Macedonian: про́за f (próza)
• Malay: prosa
• Malayalam: ഗദ്യം (ml) (gadyaṁ)
• Mongolian: үргэлжилсэн үгийн зохиол (ürgelžilsen ügiin zoxiol)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: prosa m

• Persian: نثر (fa) (nasr)
• Polish: proza (pl) f
• Portuguese: prosa (pt) f
• Romanian: proză (ro) f
• Russian: про́за (ru) f (próza)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: проза f

  Roman: proza (sh) f

• Slovak: próza f
• Slovene: proza f
• Spanish: prosa (es) f
• Swedish: prosa (sv) c
• Tajik: наср (nasr)
• Telugu: గద్యము (te) (gadyamu)
• Thai: ร้อยแก้ว (th) (rói gɛ̂ɛu)
• Turkish: nesir (tr)
• Turkmen: proza
• Ukrainian: про́за f (próza)
• Urdu: نثر (nasr)
• Uyghur: نەسر (nesr), پروزا (proza)
• Uzbek: nasr (uz), proza (uz)
• Vietnamese: văn xuôi (vi)
• Yiddish: פּראָזע f (proze)

Verb

prose (third-person singular simple present proses, present participle prosing, simple past and past participle prosed)

1. To write or repeat in a dull, tedious, or prosy way.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act I, Scene II, verses 189-190

     Pray, do not prose, good Ethelbert, but speak;

     What is your purpose?

   • 1896, Robert Smythe Hichens, The Folly of Eustace‎^[4]:

     Already he felt himself near to being a celebrity. He had astonished Eton. That was a good beginning. Papa might prose, knowing, of course, nothing of the poetry of caricature, of the wild joys and the laurels that crown the whimsical. So while Mr. Lane hunted adjectives, and ran sad-sounding and damnatory substantives to earth, Eustace hugged himself, and secretly chuckled over his pilgrim's progress towards the pages of Vanity Fair.

References

• “prose”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• OPers., Peros, Perso-, S'pore, Soper, Spero, opers, pores, poser, preso, reops, repos, ropes, spore

---

French

Etymology

From Latin prōsa.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʁoz/

• Audio (France)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophone: proses

Noun

prose f (plural proses)

1. prose

Derived terms

• faire de la prose sans le savoir
• prosateur
• proser

Verb

prose

1. inflection of proser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “prose”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• perso, pores, poser, repos

---

Italian

Noun

prose f

1. plural of prosa

Anagrams

• perso, porse, preso, spero, sperò, spore

---

Lower Sorbian

proseta

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *porsę.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈprɔsɛ/, [ˈprɔsə]

Noun

1. piglet

Declension

declension of prose

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	prose	proseśi	proseta
Genitive	proseśa	proseśowu	prosetow
Dative	proseśeju	proseśoma	prosetam
Accusative	prose	proseśi	proseta
Instrumental	proseśim	proseśoma	prosetami
Locative	proseśu	proseśoma	prosetach

Further reading

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “prose”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “prose”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag