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What is "sententious"

Crossword clues for sententious

sententious
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sententious
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It was quiet, reminiscent, a little sententious.
▪ On its own this reads like a perfectly ordinary youthful Europeanized sententious romantic flourish.
▪ Perhaps her last remark was a bit sententious?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sententious

Sententious \Sen*ten"tious\, a.[L. sentenciosus: cf. F. sentencieux.]

  1. Abounding with sentences, axioms, and maxims; full of meaning; terse and energetic in expression; pithy; as, a sententious style or discourse; sententious truth.

    How he apes his sire, Ambitiously sententious!
    --Addison.

  2. Comprising or representing sentences; sentential. [Obs.] ``Sententious marks.''
    --Grew. [1913 Webster] -- Sen*ten"tious*ly, adv. -- Sen*ten"tious*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sententious

mid-15c., "full of meaning," from Middle French sententieux, from Latin sententiosus "full of meaning, pithy," from sententia "thought; expression of a thought" (see sentence (n.)). Meaning "addicted to pompous moralizing" first recorded 1590s. Related: Sententiously; sententiousness.

Wiktionary
sententious

a. 1 (context obsolete English) Full of meaning. 2 Using as few words as possible; pithy and concise. 3 Tending to use aphorisms or maxims, especially given to trite moralizing.

WordNet
sententious

  1. adj. abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing; "too often the significant episode deteriorates into sententious conversation"- Kathleen Barnes

  2. concise and full of meaning; "welcomed her pithy comments"; "the peculiarly sardonic and sententious style in which Don Luis composed his epigrams"- Hervey Allen [syn: pithy]

Usage examples of "sententious".

Kilooa and the holy hag there ensued a long colloquy, respectful on his part, sententious and impatient on hers, Briery listened with eager attention.

This sententious answer struck them with astonishment, as I expected it would, and they looked at each other in great surprise.

In the height of the uproar and laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable gravity, only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the sententious elevation of his oratory.

Such poems are a kind of rhyming proverb, and it is a fact that definitely popular poetry is usually gnomic or sententious.

Presently he gave forth the result of his reflections in a sententious tone.