Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Consisting or characteristic of prose.
- adj. Matter-of-fact; straightforward.
- adj. Lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to prose; resembling prose; in the form of prose.
- Ordinary or commonplace in style or expression; uninteresting; dull; of persons, commonplace in thought; lacking imagination; literal.
- Synonyms Vapid, flat, bald, tame, humdrum, stupid.
Wiktionary
- adj. Pertaining to or having the characteristics of prose.
- adj. of writing or speaking Straightforward; matter-of-fact; lacking the feeling or elegance of poetry.
- adj. Overly plain or simple, to the point of being boring; humdrum.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to prose; resembling prose; in the form of prose; unpoetical; writing or using prose.
- adj. Dull; uninteresting; commonplace; unimaginative; prosy.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not challenging; dull and lacking excitement
- adj. not fanciful or imaginative
- adj. lacking wit or imagination
Etymologies
- From French prosaïque, from Medieval Latin prosaicus ("in prose"), from Latin prosa ("prose"), from prorsus ("straightforward, in prose"), from Old Latin provorsus ("straight ahead"), from pro- ("forward") + vorsus ("turned"), from vertō ("to turn"), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, to bend”). (Wiktionary)
- Late Latin prōsaicus, from Latin prōsa, prose; see prose. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My most cordial thanks therefore for the gift which you call prosaic, and my best regards to your husband.”
Letters
“The prosaic is an affair of description and narration, of details accumulated and relations elaborated, It spreads as it goes like a legal document or catalogue.”
“Still other manufacturers wrap their cars in prosaic disguises in an attempt to travel on public streets without tipping off the paparazzi.”
“Even in prosaic settings "aggressiveness can be beneficial if it helps you pound the table and say, 'I want justice!”
“The greatest things that the world has seen have been wrought out under the eyes of us, plain prosaic men that we are.”
“Poetic prose may not be the best prose, just as (to use a false antithesis) dull poetry is called prosaic; but there is no natural antagonism between prose and verse as literary mediums, provided always that the spirit that animates them be akin.”
“Out of these commonplace elements, elements that one might almost call prosaic, Wagner wrought his picture of storm, with its terror, power, joyous laughter of the storm's daughters -- storm as it must have seemed to the first poets of our race.”
“In the first place, then, he had the good fortune to be born in the most prosaic of all countries -- the most prosaic, that is, in external appearance, and even in the superficial character of its inhabitants.”
“Philippians 'renewed thought of him is likened to a tree's putting forth its buds in a gracious springtide, and may link with it the pretty fancy of an old commentator whom some people call prosaic and puritanical”
“They have been called prosaic, but this is not a right word for them; they were neither sentimental, nor, strictly speaking, poetical.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prosaic’.
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2053 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 569 more...
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P
letters starting with p
predicament, presumptuous, predilection, plausible, preeminent, plaintive, paragon, partisan, pathological, paucity, pedantic, penchant and 28 more...
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GRE
GRE Vocabs
alacrity, celerity, haste, penitent, prosaic, veracity, paucity, maintain, laconic, pugnacious, disparate, egregious and 13 more...
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GRE
trope, surreptitious, tenet, insular, munificent, exegesis, limpid, acerbic, litany, cupidity, restive, protract and 105 more...
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GRE
GRE words from Princeton Review guide, ETS GRE Book from 2010 (for revised test), New Yorker/NY Times articles.
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 124 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prosaic.
zombiesam everyday Sep 9, 2009