verbosity
nounUK /vəˈbɒsəti/ · US /vɚˈbɑsəti/
Etymology From Middle French verbosité, from Late Latin verbōsitās. By surface analysis, verbose + -ity.
1
Rhetoric The excess use of words, especially using more than are needed for clarity or precision.
- 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.2016 February 8, Marwan Bishara, “Why Obama fails the leadership test in the Middle East”, in Al Jazeera English:
- Synonyms
- ambages, circumlocution, logorrhea, logorrhoea, long-windedness, overwordiness, periphrase, periphrasis, perissology, prolixity, verboseness, verbosity, wordiness
- Antonyms
- succinctness
- Hypernyms
- excess
- Hyponyms
- battology, pleonasm, tautology, talkativeness