sententious

sententious

adjective

Definition of SENTENTIOUS

1

marked by or given to preaching moral values <a sententious crank who has written countless letters to the editor about the decline in family values>

Synonyms didactic, homiletic (or homiletical), moralistic, moralizing, preachy, sententious

Related Words dogmatic (also dogmatical), prescriptive; admonishing, admonitory, cautionary; advisory, enlightening, instructive; holier-than-thou, self-righteous

2

marked by the use of few words to convey much information or meaning <memoirs that are filled with sententious observations on love, marriage, and happiness>

Synonyms aphoristic, apothegmatic, brief, capsule, compact, compendious, crisp, curt, elliptical (or elliptic), epigrammatic, laconic, monosyllabic, pithy, sententious, succinct, summary, telegraphic, terse, thumbnail

Related Words abrupt, blunt, brusque (also brusk), short, snippety, snippy; abbreviated, abridged, condensed, curtailed, shortened; meaty, substantial; meaningful, significant; well-turned

Near Antonyms pleonastic, redundant, repetitious, tautological, tautologous; enlarged, expanded, supplemented; embellished, embroidered, exaggerated, inflated

Antonyms circuitous, circumlocutory, diffuse, long-winded, prolix, rambling, verbose, windy, wordy