prosaic

prosaic, prosy, matter-of-fact all denote having a plain, practical, unimaginative, unemotional character or quality.

Prosaic implies an opposition to poetic in the extended sense of that word. Although the term suggests the quality of prose, it seldom refers to literary prose as such but rather to the ordinary language of men in communicating their wants, their ideas, or their experiences, or in rendering intelligible what is difficult to understand or make clear; hence, prosaic usually implies a commonplace, unexciting quality, and the absence of everything that would stimulate feeling or awaken great interest

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to make verse speak the language of prose, without being prosaic ... is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake— Cowper

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a certain irreverent exuberance which prompts him never to choose a prosaic example for his concrete illustrations— Times Lit. Sup.

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the eighteenth century, from the religious point of view, is a period of rather cold and prosaic common sense— Inge

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a record of mediocrities, of the airless prosaic world of a small college town— E. K. Brown

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Prosy, on the other hand, suggests a relation to prose, the verb, rather than to prose, the noun, and heightens the implication in the verb of turning what is poetry or interesting prose into dull plain prose (as by paraphrasing or by translating). Consequently, prosy stresses extreme dullness or tediousness and usually implies a tendency to talk or write at length in a boring or uninviting manner

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made me wish that he would be long-winded and prosy instead of twitching me from one thing to another— Sassoon

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all prosy dull society sinners, who chatter and bleat and bore— Gilbert

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Matter-of-fact stresses a lack of interest in the imaginative, speculative, visionary, romantic or ideal; sometimes it connotes accuracy in detail, but often it suggests concern only for the obvious and a neglect of the deeper or spiritual reality or an absence of emotional quality

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a matter-of-fact account of his experience

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a matter-of-fact historian

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faced with this matter-of-fact skepticism you are driven into pure metaphysics— Shaw

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Lilly, who was matter-of-fact and in whom introspection, poetry or contemplation had no place— Ethel Wilson

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Analogous words: practical, *practicable: boring, tedious, *irksome