Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Pompous and bombastic.
  • adjective Full in sound; sonorous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pompous; self-satisfied; inflated: applied to a style of utterance.
  • noun A deep, full voice.
  • In elocution, characterized by strength, fullness, richness, and clearness; open, mellow, rich, and musical: applied to the voice or manner of utterance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Characterized by fullness, clearness, strength, and smoothness; ringing and musical; -- said of the voice or manner of utterance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Characterized by fullness, clarity, strength, and smoothness of sound.
  • adjective Pompous; bombastic

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of sounds) full and rich
  • adjective ostentatiously lofty in style

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From alteration of Latin ōre rotundō, with a round mouth : ōre, ablative of ōs, mouth; see ōs- in Indo-European roots + rotundō, ablative of rotundus, round; see rotund.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Orotund derives from Latin ore rotundo, “with a round mouth,” hence “clear, loud,” from os, oris, “the mouth” + rotundus, “round.”

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Examples

  • Principal among such figures employed by amateurs are the long complex metaphors and similes in which epic poetry delights; the figure of apostrophe, too, is much affected by tyros, because it affords them opportunity to coin orotund phrases concerning the irony of fate, the haplessness of true lovers, and kindred favorite topics.

    Short Story Writing A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story Charles Raymond Barrett

  • Yet France is rarely averse to padding out sentences with an unnecessary "perforce" or "hitherto"; and it's hard not to conclude that within this orotund, romantic novel there's a much leaner, more elliptical account of agrarian angst fighting to get out.

    Hill Farm by Miranda France – review 2011

  • His mid-20th-century senators certainly speak better than those serving today, most of whom, during debate, could scarcely pronounce, let alone deploy, its orotund courtesies and barbs.

    A young reader discovers the meaning of paranoia in the political novels of Allen Drury 2009

  • Many translations of his work into English exist, from the slightly orotund, Victorian versions composed by the Bengali Nobel poet-laureate Rabindranath Tagore in the early 20th century to the Americanized versions in the 1980s produced by the poet Robert Bly.

    When Mysticism Came Down to Earth Chandrahas Choudhury 2011

  • He shouted and whispered, swooped from orotund formality to gutter lingo, mashing Sanskrit with flapper slang always in confident pronouncements and warnings: "The safety valve of this age for repressed, suppressed emotion is hooch, sex and drugs," he declared in 1927.

    'The Great Oom' 2010

  • Hortensius went next and did his best, but those great orotund purple passages for which he was so famous belonged to another setting—and, in truth, another era.

    CONSPIRATA ROBERT HARRIS 2010

  • You have said with finality what needed to be said about the ignorant, misleading, bloated, orotund, bombastic phrase-making of Edgar and Daley.

    Bill Sweetland: Education in Chicago: Reason to Cheer: Common Sense About Schools From Thinking Observers 2009

  • Oscar revelled in the orotund, slightly archaic turns of phrase the actor employed.

    Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile Gyles Brandreth 2009

  • Oscar revelled in the orotund, slightly archaic turns of phrase the actor employed.

    Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile Gyles Brandreth 2009

  • I know you enjoy orotund grandiloquence and righteous insult.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

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