talkative

talkative, loquacious, garrulous, voluble, glib are comparable chiefly as applied to persons and their moods and as meaning given to talk or talking. The same distinctions in implications and connotations are also seen in their corresponding nouns talkativeness, loquacity or loquaciousness, garrulity or garrulousness, volubility or volubleness, and glibness.

Talkative and talkativeness, the least explicit of these terms, may imply nothing more than a readiness to engage in talk, or they may suggest fluency and ease in talking or a disposition to enjoy conversation

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a talkative boy learns French sooner in France than a silent boy— Sydney Smith

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he was talkative, he had a natural curiosity— Styrori

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among them they noticed a beautiful, slim, talkative old man, with bright black eyes and snowwhite hair— L. P. Smith

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Loquacious and loquacity more commonly imply fluency and ease in speech or, sometimes, an undue talkativeness

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had lost his usual loquac-ity and quaint humor— Kingsley

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talks in a rapid and persuasive fashion (he is described as loquacious and good-natured)— Current Biog.

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a loquaciousness at times rising to eloquence— Walter Cerf

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Garrulous and garrulity imply prosy, tedious, or rambling loquacity and usually suggest much idle talk about trivial things

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a fond garrulous old man, who loved to indulge his mind in reminiscences of the past— Trollope

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his petty vanities and anxieties, are set down with a naive, irresistible garrulity—Brit. Book News

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Voluble and volubility suggest a free, flowing, and seemingly unending loquacity

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perhaps it was an overwhelming shock for the voluble French to discover that foreigners could enjoy conversation, too— Maclnnes

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realizing that she had made a faux pas, was uneasy and voluble—S. H. Adams

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he sang of the lark, and it was the lark's voluble se\f—Pater

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for it was not a fault in him to dislike Aunt Charlotte, whose volubility must have assorted ill with his customary reserve— Archibald Marshall

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Glib and glibness are often interchangeable with voluble and volubility, but distinctively they may suggest a facility indicative of superficiality, trickery, or deceitfulness

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as usual when bemused, he flung out a smoke screen of his own variety of glib chatter— Theodore Sturgeon

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a glib excuse

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to train students as speakers, while neglecting them as listeners, is to foster glibness and deceitfulness— Wendell Johnson

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Analogous words: *vocal, fluent, articulate, voluble, glib, eloquent: *vociferous, clamorous

Antonyms: silent

Contrasted words: reticent, reserved, uncommunicative, secretive (see SILENT)