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Verbiage descends from Middle French verbier ("to chatter"), itself an offspring of "werbler," an Old French word meaning "to trill." The usual sense of the word implies an overabundance of possibly unnecessary words. It is similar to "wordiness," except that it stresses the superfluous words themselves more than the quality that produces them. In other words, a writer with a fondness for "verbiage" might be accused of "wordiness." Some people think the phrase "excess verbiage" is redundant, but that's not necessarily true. In the early 19th century, "verbiage" developed a second sense meaning, simply, "wording," with no suggestion of excess. This second definition has sometimes been treated as an error by people who insist that "verbiage" must always imply excessiveness, but that sense is well-established and can be considered standard.

Examples of verbiage in a Sentence

NOT the least of the many trials inflicted upon the Boston Red Sox has been a torrent of verbiage. Surely no team in recent memory has been so scrutinized, complained about and then elegized. — Charles McGrath, New York Times Book Review, 13 Aug. 2006 Fashionable courtiers in the Renaissance adopted the doublet. … The cotton padding of this jacket, called bombast (the source of the term for inflated verbiage), was gradually increased to give courtiers the pumped-up look. — John Tierney, New York Times, 21 Jan. 1999 To find the height of arcane verbiage look no farther than Rule 10 of the rules governing Major League Baseball, in what is known as the Blue Book. The corresponding entry explains the waivers system—the procedures that pertain to certain player transactions—in a way that makes the Magna Carta look like part of the Jackie Collins oeuvre. — Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 25 Aug. 1997 Sure, some contract verbiage is so objectionable, it can be considered against public policy; in fact, the most arduous hold-harmless clauses would probably be thrown out of court. — Leon H. Ciesla, Plane & Pilot, March 1995 Is word processing truly the wonder it seems or will it turn out to be but a mere exercise in verbose verbiage? — Erik Sandberg-Diment, New York Times, 26 June 1984 The editor removed some of the excess verbiage from the article. teachers loathe the verbiage that students resort to in order to pad a paper

Recent Examples on the Web Some marquees have sagged under the weight of excess verbiage, thanks to the addition of authors’ names to play or musical titles that are perfectly capable of standing on their own. — BostonGlobe.com, 9 July 2021 His witty verbiage can serve as pleasure and obstacle both. — Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine, 25 May 2021 But take it from us: Signage, decor, invitations, and more should be kept simple and void of excess verbiage. — Heather Hall, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 June 2021 Trump decision reeks of partisanship and is written with the type of verbiage actual courts in this nation simply don’t use. — Aron Solomon, Fortune, 13 May 2021 That verbiage, though, changed on Wednesday when SeaWorld removed the reference to allowing out-of-state visitors with a negative COVID-19 test. — San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Apr. 2021 Toward the end of the interview, Oprah asked Harry to elaborate on the verbiage used. — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 8 Mar. 2021 To many of the former president’s detractors, the absence of a daily barrage of anxiety-provoking presidential verbiage feels closer to a return to normalcy than anything else (so far) in 2021. — Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2021 To many of the former president’s detractors, the absence of a daily barrage of anxiety-provoking presidential verbiage feels closer to a return to normalcy than anything else (so far) in 2021. — BostonGlobe.com, 17 Apr. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'verbiage.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for verbiage

borrowed from French, from verbier "to trill, warble" (going back to Middle French verboier "to twitter," altered from Middle French dialect (Picard) verbloier, guerbloier, derivative of werbler "to sing expressively, trill") + -age -age — more at warble entry 1

Note: The meaning of French verbiage clearly shows the associative influence of verbe "word, verb" and its derivatives.

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