verbiage

1 the use of too many words to express an idea teachers loathe the verbiage that students resort to in order to pad a paper Synonyms circumlocution, diffuseness, diffusion, garrulity, garrulousness, logorrhea, long-windedness, periphrasis, prolixity, redundancy, verbalism, verboseness, verbosity, windiness, wordage, wordiness Related Words circuitousness, circularity, digressiveness; pleonasm, tautology; reiteration, repetition, repetitiousness, repetitiveness; embellishment, embroidering, exaggeration, hyperbole, overstatement Near Antonyms brevity, briefness, compactness, conciseness, concision, crispness, pithiness, succinctness, terseness

2 language that is impressive-sounding but not meaningful or sincere the pretentious verbiage that one finds in the reviews of self-important art critics Synonyms bombast, fustian, gas, grandiloquence, hot air, oratory, rhetoric, windRelated Words claptrap, drivel, gibberish, hogwash, humbug, jabberwocky, jazz, moonshine, nonsense; affectedness, floweriness, grandiosity, loftiness, pomposity, pretension, pretentiousness; garrulity, garrulousness, verboseness, verbosity, windiness, wordiness

3 the way in which something is put into words as per the standard verbiage of military reports, the assault was launched at “0700 hours” Synonyms diction, language, phraseology, phrasing, wordingRelated Words expression, formulation, locution; enunciation, phrase, speech, style, utterance, voice