wordy

wordy, verbose, prolix, diffuse, redundant can all mean using or marked by the use of more words than are necessary to express the thought.

Wordy often carries no further implications, though it may suggest garrulousness or loquacity when the reference is to speech

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went into considerable detail about the Fuehrer's thoughts and policies on almost every conceivable subject, being more wordy than any previous letter ... to his Italian partner— Shirer

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a wordy, prolegomenous babbler— Stevenson

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Verbose suggests overabundance of words as a literary fault characteristic especially of a writer or public speaker or of a work or speech; it often implies resulting dullness or obscurity of expression or a lack of incisiveness, confusion of ideas, or grandiloquence

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a verbose style

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a dull verbose narrative

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his letters are full of interesting details but they are never verbose

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Prolix implies such attention to minute details as to extend what is written or told beyond due bounds; the term carries a stronger implication of tediousness or wearisomeness than verbose

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the belief, so prevalent abroad, that it is typical of Russian literature to be formless, prolix and hysterical— Edmund Wilson

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this, then, was Nuflo's story, told not in Nuflo's manner, which was infinitely prolix— Hudson

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Diffuse usually implies verbosity, but it throws the emphasis upon the lack of organization and of the compactness and condensation needed for pointedness and for strength of style; it often attributes flabbiness, looseness, or desultoriness to what is written

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the one can be profuse on occasion; the other is diffuse whether he will or no— J. R. Lowell

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though Seneca is long-winded, he is not diffuse; he is capable of great concision— T. S. Eliot

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Redundant can apply to whatever is superfluous

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older . . . occupations are becoming redundant and obsolete— Barkin

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but in its specific application to words and phrases the term implies a superfluity that results from being repetitious or unneeded for clarity and accuracy of expression

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revision of technical prose requires word by word review and elimination of whatever is redundant

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In its corresponding application to writers, speakers, or utterances redundant implies the use of redundancies (see redundancy under VERBIAGE)

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the naturally copious and flowing style of the author is generally redundant— Mackintosh

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she had been, like nearly all very young writers, superfluous of phrase, redundant— Rose Macaulay

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in sharp comment . . . quite demolished the emptiness and the pretentiousness of this redundant plan— Michener

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Analogous words: *inflated, turgid, tumid, flatulent: bombastic, *rhetorical: loquacious, garrulous, voluble, glib, *talkative

Contrasted words: laconic, *concise, terse, succinct, summary, pithy, compendious