Wiktionary

orotund

English

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WOTD – 19 December 2023

Etymology

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PIE word
*h₁óh₃s
The American actor James Earl Jones, noted for his orotund voice (sense 1), reading from William Shakespeare’s play Othello at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009.

The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin ōre rotundō (“with a round mouth; hence, clear; loud”) (whence English ore rotundo), possibly influenced by rotund (“having a curved, round, or spherical shape; (figurative) of sound: full and rich”).[1] Ōre rotundō is composed of ōre (the ablative singular of ōs (“mouth”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óh₃s (“mouth”)) + rotundō (the ablative singular of rotundus (“circular, round”) (possibly from rota (“wheel”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Hreth₂- (“to run”)) + -undus (suffix forming adjectives)).

The noun is derived from the adjective.[1]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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orotund (comparative more orotund, superlative most orotund)

  2. Of a voice: characterized by clarity, fullness, smoothness, and strength of sound; hence, of a person: having a clear, full, and strong voice, appropriate for public speaking, reading aloud, etc.
    (of a voice): Synonyms: ore rotundo, resonant, rotund; see also Thesaurus:sonorous
  3. (by extension)
    1. Of writing, etc.: clear, effective, powerful.
    2. (derogatory) Of speech or writing: bombastic, pompous.
      Synonyms: grandiloquent, magniloquent, tumid, turgid
      • 1990, Robert Klitgaard, “Beginning to Move”, in Tropical Gangsters, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, page 124:
        A series of U.N. and government officials spoke. […] In orotund turns of phrase—indeed, in spiraling helices of phrase; in snarled fishing lines of phrase; in endless small intestines of phrase--the speakers ingeniously explored and invented connections between qwerty, alphabetical filing, and socioeconomic advance.
      • 2004 October 31, Anthony Quinn, “‘The Line of Beauty’: The last good summer [book review]”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-10-18:
        He would also, you can't help thinking, have approved [Alan] Hollinghurst's discriminating eye and perhaps even enjoyed the half-facetious, half-adoring tributes Nick pays to his famously orotund late style, the "plums of periphrasis" Nick likes to slip into his conversation.
      • 2014 August 15, Steven Pinker, “Reference and languages books: Steven Pinker: 10 ‘grammar rules’ it’s OK to break (sometimes)”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-03-27:
        When Groucho Marx was once asked a long and orotund question, he replied, "Whom knows?" […] The popularity of "whom" humour tells us two things about the distinction between "who" and "whom". First, "whom" has long been perceived as formal verging on pompous. Second, the rules for its proper use are obscure to many speakers, tempting them to drop "whom" into their speech whenever they want to sound posh.
        Appeared in print in the Review section (issue 52,240) on 16 August 2014, page 4, column 3.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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orotund (countable and uncountable, plural orotunds) (obsolete)

  1. (countable) A voice characterized by clarity, fullness, smoothness, and strength of sound.
  2. (uncountable) The quality of clarity, effectiveness, and power in speech or writing.

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “orotund, adj. and n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “orotund, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

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Note 2