verbosity

English

Etymology

From Middle French verbosité, from Late Latin verbōsitās. By surface analysis, verbose +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vəˈbɒsəti/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /vɚˈbɑsəti/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

Noun

verbosity (countable and uncountable, plural verbosities)

1. (rhetoric) The excess use of words, especially using more than are needed for clarity or precision.

   Synonyms: long-windedness, verboseness, wordiness, verbiage, prolixity

   • 2016 February 8, Marwan Bishara, “Why Obama fails the leadership test in the Middle East”, in Al Jazeera English‎^[1]:

     With Christie's words about "all-talk-no-action" in mind, notice that Obama and his two secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as well as his vice president, Joe Biden, were all senators, the last two serving for two or three decades, respectively. Not forgetting the ill-fated secretary of defense, Senator Chuck Hagel. Their capacity for talking so much and saying so little is astonishing. Their verbosity is unpalatable.

Translations

the excess use of words; long-windedness

• Bulgarian: многословие (bg) n (mnogoslovie)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 冗句 (zh) (rǒngjù), (in composition)

• Dutch: breedsprakigheid (nl) f
• French: verbosité (fr) f
• Galician: verbosidade (gl) f
• Georgian: მრავალსიტყვიანობა (mravalsiṭq̇vianoba)
• German: Verbosität (de) f, Weitschweifigkeit f
• Greek: πολυλογία (el) f (polylogía), απεραντολογία (el) f (aperantología)
• Hungarian: bőbeszédűség (hu)
• Irish: foclachas m
• Italian: verbosità (it) f
• Japanese: 冗句 (じょ​ーく, jōku)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ordrikhet m

• Portuguese: verbosidade (pt) f, verborragia (pt) f
• Russian: многословность (ru) (mnogoslovnostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: преопширност f

  Latin: preopširnost f

• Spanish: palabrería (es) f
• Swedish: mångordighet (sv) (neutral), svammel (sv) (negatively connotated)
• Turkish: laf kalabalığı
• Welsh: geiriogrwydd m