prose

¹prose

noun \ˈprōz\

Definition of PROSE

1

a : the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing b : a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech

2

: a dull or ordinary style, quality, or condition

Examples of PROSE

1. She writes in very clear prose.
2. … the esteemed critic James Wood reaches out to assure “the common reader” … that his prose is as free as he can make it of what James Joyce termed “the true scholastic stink” of so much academic writing. —Walter Kirn, New York Times Book Review, 17 Aug. 2008
3. Like many two-person writing teams, this one produces its share of three-legged prose and redundancy. —James McManus, New York Times Book Review, 15 Apr. 2001
4. In my own work I felt a need to hurry from climax as in film montage, or even in Joycean prose with its strings of firecracker words … —Arthur Miller, Timebends, 1987

Origin of PROSE

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin prosa, from feminine of prorsus, prosus, straightforward, being in prose, contraction of proversus, past participle of provertere to turn forward, from pro- forward + vertere to turn — more at pro-, worth

First Known Use: 14th century

Other Literature Terms

apophasis, bathos, bildungsroman, bowdlerize, caesura, coda, doggerel, euphemism, poesy, prosody

Rhymes with PROSE

brose, chose, close, cloze, doze, gloze, hose, nose, pose, rose, Rose