A.Word.A.Day --prolix

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prolix

PRONUNCIATION:

(pro-LIKS, PRO-liks)

MEANING:

adjective: Tediously wordy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin prolixus (extended, poured), from liquere (to flow), which is also the source of words such as liquid, liquor, licorice. Now you see the connection -- why consuming liquor makes people prolix.

USAGE:

"No one has ever called him prolix. At a future-war seminar that he sponsored, Mr. Andrew Marshall mumbled a few introductory words and then sat in silence, eyebrows arched, arms folded, for the remaining two days."
James Der Derian; The Illusion of a Grand Strategy; The New York Times; May 25, 2001.

See more usage examples of prolix in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief. -Arthur Schnitzler, writer and doctor (1862-1931)

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